The valley of introspection.

I was reading Gwen's post upon the completion of her PCP today. What she had to say about loneliness really struck home for me.

I tend to identify very strongly with the communities that I'm a part of. In college I had my friends from my dorms, I had my friends from Magic, I had my World of Warcraft guildies (I consider those friendships just as real as the ones in meat space). In Peace Corps I had my villagers, and I had the PC/NGO community. Now I have my Magic community (again) my friends from college, my coworkers. All of these communities very much influence my identity. The Magic Seabass is a little bit different from the work Seabass, who's different from college Seabass, etc.

My point is that while I anchored myself in these communities, I still move between them. No one group of people sees the full me. More importantly, other parts of myself will eventually creep in and, I feel, put at a distance from those around me. Inevitably, the loneliness creeps in. Sometimes it can be quite depressing.

I think I'm starting to figure out how it works. Basically, there's some part of me that is not content to just carry on. I push for change, either in myself or my surroundings. Most of the communities I fit into revolve around something fairly constant. Obviously that's what binds us together. But I keep doing something or introducing something that changes me profoundly, causes me to grow suddenly in some wild direction, while those around me grow together in some steady direction and pace. It all means I never feel like I quite fit in.

Peace Corps was one of these profound changes and I've never felt quite at home since I've been back. I was actually apprehensive about starting PCP because I was afraid that it would change me equally drastically (and I think so far it is having that effect). I'll stop beating around the bush and admit that a lot of this has to do with relationships. When I left Peace Corps I had been dating a fellow volunteer who is an amazing human being. She definitely thought about things on the same level that I did, but she was different enough from me in so many ways that it really brought out parts of me that don't often come out. Good parts.

Needless to say we are not in a relationship anymore, but since I've been back I have had tremendous difficulty in meeting women who I can really connect with on that sort of level. (For those of you who listen, this is exactly what Gwen and Patrick were talking about in Zen is Stupid this week.) There's already a fairly small subset of people who would even consider PCP. By completing it, am I putting myself further out on some obscure branch only to look back at everyone still clinging to the trunk? By adding another layer, am I making it that much harder for myself to find true companionship with another human being? The kind of companionship that comes from shared experience and understanding?

I don't know. But I know that it's lonely out where I have to decline invite's to hang out because "I still have to work out and make my food for tomorrow." Honestly, it doesn't feel like a chore. That's what I want to do. But it's also lonely.

This post has gone on more than long enough and has put into type more than I anticipated. I'll post it now before I decide it's too open. This is the kind of introspection the valleys bring out in me.