August 18, 1971 - Love ... Along Appropriate Lines

I have given my oldest journal to Dr. R to read. I mentioned that he was in it several times & he said "I should hope so. After all we've been through together - " or something like that. And since, I have felt bad somehow &, wondering why, I have thot this: perhaps he is human enough to think I might have meant he was in it in quite another way, being more a part of the series of fantasy-loves I told him it had become a record of, being an account of the last 6-7 years of searching, finding, learning, hurting. And I thot such a lack, if lack there was, was nothing but a tribute to his fairness as a man and as a doctor. He has never called me anything but "Mrs. McCoy", knowing, I believe, that familiarity can only encourage inappropriate feelings and attitudes. And yet I love him and he knows I love him - but he has taught me and allowed me to grow this love only along appropriate lines and thus he has given me a gift I have never known before or since or elsewhere - the finest gift one can be given - a true and valuable love for an invaluable male friend, rarer than lovers by far. I love him.

There was a young girl from Norway
Who hung by her toes in the doorway
She said to her beau,
"Look at me, Joe,
I think I've discovered one more way"

I yearn for the old and the peace of the old - after seeing The Last Run with George C. Scott (excellent!) and its back-ground of Portugal, Spain & Southern France and hillsides of quiet white red-roofed houses - old towns full of peace and slow, calm lives, raced past by today's tourists- and it made me want to be there, to withdraw from the race, the need, the compulsion - to return to what was - to withdraw to time to be & to think & to live life and not calendars.

Oh, Dr. R., you are too fair, too fine, for me. I would not dare to want you. I see you as what it is possible to be, what I will never be or touch. What have I got to compensate? I know what I have got and if I had to choose, I don't believe I would choose otherwise. I have got a sense, a view, a feeling for which there is no price, no value in our terms. Ruth knew it, she understood, she saw what is hard to see. Dr. R. sees, I think - he knows and I love him for it.

A. didn't call tonight. I thot he would. I really did. I don't care. No, that's not right, I do care. I care very much. It's just that it does me no good to care. So I go on. Relieved in a way - it frees me. I let go and it's a relief because it no longer pulls on me but I miss the pulling. Because pulling means caring but caring does me no good. So --------- I care not. (I do care.) I want not (I do want.) So what & why ------------