Completing One's Self

When Tom Cruise said it in a movie, the ladies swooned as his character declared deep love for his wife. In the "real" world it's heard as a trite phrase that indicates a clingy, needy personality or a tendency toward cheesy schmaltz.

"I complete me."

I've never heard anyone actually say this out loud (although I know it's been said), but how does it sound? Egocentric or self-confident?

In thinking about my own life, I've come to realize that both of these angles are necessary sometimes to reach the ultimate goal of "being myself".

When I was starting in Web Design, I didn't know anything except that I liked computers and was fascinated by what people were doing with them. I bought a HTML 3.2 bargain book and went to California. When I first met Jane at my new job, I was blown away by her tech prowess. Everybody else at the office had Windows 98, she demanded NT (and got it). I had never even heard of NT. And she could make web pages. That alone was enough to earn a "schwing!" from my inner geek. She taught me what she knew and I was soon making the Flash intro for the homepage of our new web site. A year later, she was my wife.

My abilities grew steadily, and I soon started creating some CSS "deep magic" by pure luck. When I showed Jane what I had figured out, she was impressed. She started referring to me as the "Yoda of CSS". I soon found my skills growing exponentially, and I maintained a top-notch skill set for years after.

Since losing Jane to a sudden illness more than a year ago, I have really dried up. Where I used to look at restaurant placemats and devise XHTML/CSS code structures, now I can't even remember what the property for "italic" is without looking it up. Dreamweaver is a bunch of quiche-y looking green and gray boxes with all kinds of code in it which makes no sense to me. It has taken me no less than a act of brute will to get anything done, and mostly I have not. Naturally, I am disturbed by this, and have tried to figure out why.

I won't get into details about the sad, sad, sad state of affairs my love life is in these days, either. Legally dead is more like it. I've met some great ladies, but I keep blowing it because I get too excited by the prospect of being able to love again. It's because I believe a relationship is worth putting in 100%, and that's what I'd become accustomed to doing for the last 10 years. I'm so good at being a partner that new potential partners don't know what to make of it. Their best guess is that somehow, I'm "not ready for a relationship" and they move on. The hurt compounds.

"Maybe, just maybe" thought I, "there's a connection here between my perceived over-enthusiasm for romance and my lethargy for web coding." There is, and I finally figured it out.

When Jane called me "CSS Yoda", she believed it. Because she believed it, I believed it and became it. Without her, I ceased to believe it. Now, I suck. I was able to achieve some great things with her in my life because she believed in me. Now that she's gone and never coming back, I have been less than half of what I am. Her belief in me was what completed me. I depended on her to believe in me, and she depended on me for what, I don't know. That's a hallmark of love. Not mutual independence, like the "experts" say, but mutual dependence which grows in the context of a relationship. Anyone who's been there knows I am speaking the truth.

I haven't lost my capacity to love, in fact the experience continues to open my heart in numerous ways. I've lost none of my skills in the romantic arts. I know how to be a true companion best of all. But as Santana said in song, "I ain't got nobody that I can depend on."

Processing this all has made me see quite clearly what I need to do. I have been seemingly over-enthusiastic in the romance department because subconsciously I wanted someone to believe in me the same way Jane did. But even though she is not here to tell me she believes in me doesn't make it her earlier belief any less valid than it was years ago. What ultimately mattered was that I believed in me. It still is what ultimately matters. I don't need another person to do that.

I depended on Jane to believe in me because that was a unique feature of that relationship, and it grew within the context of that relationship, not before. Realizing that has been powerful. Now I can understand what the mysterious "partner repellent" has been for me. I had been thinking it was my looks, or my modest means, or nerves, or any other number of errors or faux pas I had committed during or between dates, but I know better now.

Sure, having others who believe in you is still a powerful motivator. Depending on these others for it, especially when you just met them, sucks all the joy out of a new potential romance. When one stops relying on new significant others for belief in one's self, and by extension anything else beyond just being good company, the pressure is off and any disappointment in the failures is kept to an appropriate, non-debilitating minimum. Not only that, it centers and calms one's spirit when going out.

Others may give you a boost when they believe in you, but you complete yourself when you realize it was your job all along - and you begin doing it.