It was the Irish poet and scholar George Bernard Shaw who said – “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
I find this to be largely true.
When your entire relationship relies upon finding the delicate balance of reaching someone at a distance, you really begin to understand how important it is to choose your words wisely. But when you love someone with a passion and want to communicate with them your affection, sometimes its the things that don’t get said which carry the most weight.
There are numerous reasons why I sometimes can’t tell Betsy exactly how much I care about her. The majority of these reasons lie outside my control and instead with the security needed to keep human beings behind walls and bars.
Even as I write this, I’m imagining how I want to tell her about the nature of the days events, but know that in doing so I would risk my personal safety just by describing the trauma inherent in surviving captivity. Those gaps of knowing, the “pain gaps,” make me creative by design. I don’t think the management have any idea how close their surveillance tactics have brought us together. Because when you have to be very discerning with your words, when they’re all you’ve got to tell the person you love how much they matter to you and why, you become very skilled at picking the right ones.
I’ve experimented with the infinite number of ways I can tell Betsy how much I love her. I’ve written stories that plumb the depths of my feelings of being separated from her physically. You would think I’m in space, and sometimes I am. I’ve drawn her illustrations, diagrams of my own body to give her the shape I’m in. She has drawings of my hands with which she can feel the texture of where I’ve been. I’ve put together mailings which contain every photograph, media article, or writing which reminds me in even the smallest way of the things I see inside her.
There’s no limit to the lengths I’ll go to satiate her woman’s curiosity for knowing how fond I am of her. It’s easy to let emotions and events flow past without stopping to look. When you have miles between the immediate event and the object of your hearts joy, you’ve got to find ways to capture the fleeting nature of your experience to relive it with them. Its amazing how much the past tense may mean. I’m consistently pondering if my descriptions of longing communicate how hard and piercing missing her is when it hits.
So when the WiFi is being uncooperative, I journal the felt experience of my being in love. I trust that if I’m real, if I’m committed, then I have nothing I can’t tell Betsy. Everything looks perfect from far away, and I keep this in mind.
Part of this long mellow communication we share is not being afraid of getting real, knowing that it’s required in order to bridge the gap. Authenticity is the glue that binds our shared experiences. You can’t fake this kind of affection, it won’t hold without it. Betsy manages through her infinite wellspring of compassion to give me the freedom to be myself. When you give permission to allow someone to fully be, they’re always with you.
There are going to be days I can’t call her. The human rights of being a hostage of the state don’t extend into your romantic interests. There will be times I’m tortured with a thing I have to say, but don’t want to because it could compromise my being able to stay in contact with her at all. I have feelings to express but sometimes the means to express them have to be pulled from imagination.
You know what though? Its one of the most fulfilling pursuits of this relationship. I find Betsy to be infinitely interesting, and I’ll never run out of ways to tell her why. When the carefully designed illustration reaches her, when the poured over letter finds her, and when the call finally comes over the wire, this fine art of communication lands. It requires a creative sensibility, but I think she gets it.
I’ve seen the height of her smile.
Betsy + Bear 