Here Nor There

 I remember you telling me once about hearing "I just like having you here". You feel insulted, like an object to be possessed. This popped into my brain while I was reading this morning. 

I would tell you the same thing. I tell Vania all the time. Though I have to admit, it probably has a better effect surrounded by "I love you". It's not a statement of possession. It's a statement of intimacy.

I can't speak for any one else. I just know for myself, that the words you hear and the meaning I intend to convey don't match. I attach emotions with places. That probably sounds very strange. I didn't realize until reading Temple Grandin's book Thinking in Pictures. All of my memories and dreams are about places. The house I grew up in. The school I went to. Church. College.

There were people in those places. But my connection is with the place. Other places don't exist. Really. I have a difficult time grasping the reality that there is way more to the world than the place I can see. It just doesn't register emotionally. And when that reality intrudes, it is emotionally jarring. I think that's a large part of my reluctance to visit new places. And why I am thankful for friends who drag me along.

My connection with people has always been tenuous. It's not a lack of desire or disregard for their value. I just can't connect with someone who is in a different place. It feels alien. I can't imagine Deanna and Lucy in school. Their school time was separate, different, foreign. Intellectually, I know they were at school, walking hallways, sitting in lectures. But somehow it isn't real. There's no connection.

I'm getting off topic. The idea of sharing a place with someone else is an expression of emotional connection. Or the desire for emotional connection. We have a place connects easier with me than you and I. Vania and I can sit on the couch doing completely different things. I watch TV. She plays on her tablet. Yet we still connect emotionally.

In Dungeons and Dragons, characters have this measure called presence. That's how I think of it, I enjoy her presence. I enjoy classical music, bluegrass, museums, watching sports live, the beach, the forest, etc.. I like sharing those things with someone else, way more than the thing itself. "I like having you here" means that you bring something special those things can't. And it's an admission that I want more of it.

Like I said, I can only speak for myself. If I were the one saying to you "I just like having you here", it isn't a declaration of possession. It's an expression of emotion. Granted, a struggling expression. A seed trying to break through its own husk and take root. And fertilized, it will grow, looking more and more like what you expect.

Anyway, another perspective.