mark ty-wharton

blog.aspergineering.com

I’ve woken this morning nursing a slowly churning stomach.
I dreamed about a girl called Jo.

I was in a house with my old friend Mark Stubbs.
We were preparing for her arrival.
She was a TV presenter in the dream.
She was to be an important guest.
She was also my ex-girlfriend, yet I told no-one.

I was charging around being very domesticated with a hoover.
She arrived.

I didn’t see her face, she was driving a huge baby blue American truck.
She was actually a character from my past.

Then I remembered calling her.
She had gone to Scotland with a friend.
This guy lived upstairs from her Finsbury Park apartment.
They had been camping or to a festival.
It was arranged before we started dating.

I remember being anxious about it before she went.
I was worried she would sleep with the guy.
I wanted to be cool.
So I said nothing.

When she came back I called her.
She was on the phone, gushing with excitement.
“I can’t go out with you any more” I said.
I knew it was the wrong decision.
I felt it in my stomach.

“Why not”, she wanted a reason… “Please tell me why”?

I couldn’t.

She was my best friends girl.

I had cheekily asked for her number, then worse, called her and invited her out behind his back.
Then I stole her from him.

Because of my own insecurities, I was afraid anyone else could do the same to me.
My anxiety was, she would sleep with anyone.

Maybe she did?
Later it caused the death of my friend.

So what is this feeling?

Am I still anxious, or is it guilt?

I watched YES MAN the other night.

It is beautifully put together and the portrayal of romance in the film is almost perfect.
Life isn’t like that!

In the film, Carl Allen makes a covenant with Terrence Bundley, a guy who runs seminars to teach people to say YES to life.
Carl agrees to say YES to everything.
Carl believes if he says no, bad things will befall him.

It reminds me of Landmark Education.
There is a part of a Landmark course around incompletions.
We were encouraged to find people from our past and apologise to them.
If they are dead, you write them a letter to complete.
Everything left unsaid is said.
If you don’t do it, you are stuck with the incompletion forever.
Another covenant perhaps?
Get it complete or bad feelings will befall you.

Even if I had Jo sitting in front of me right now, I wouldn’t know where to start.
Nothing left unsaid? I can’t even remember it all now.
She was outgoing, I was an anxious wreck.

My best friend is dead, I once wrote him a letter.
So why the slowly churning stomach.
Is there still an incompletion?
Of course there is.

But, does every incompletion constitute repeated contemplation on the matter?
Perhaps it is time to break the covenant I made with Landmark.

Perhaps it is time to say I am not proud of what I did, but it is in the past.
It is my history and it does not make me who I am.
I am not the sum of my past actions.
I am free.
I am creating myself from my future actions and intentions.
Right here, right now.

So do I need to find Jo and explain?
Even in my dreams?
Can I cure my churning stomach?
You bet I can.
I can have a nice cup of tea and smile at the memory.

See you on the other side of the looking glass,