Edie and Andy

I don't want to live my life to end up being remembered in reference to someone else, especially if that person can't be bothered to care about me as well. I do have a fear, not of commitment, but of giving myself so fully to someone, and having the other person look down on everything I have to offer, and still demand more. Not because they see potential in me, but because they don't care for the world I have given them. They feel entitled. They want to get more out of me, or anyone they can get it from. I am not speaking of everyone, just of those that I know, that I have loved as friends and lovers.
I have been blessed, truly blessed, to have amazing people in my life that love and support me. I have also had the blessing of many lessons bestowed by a journey that, at times, I hated because it hurt so badly. I am at a crossroads now, as I feel that I give too much, and yet I don't want bad experiences to dim the beauty of trust, giving of yourself, and love.
I have been home sick today, watching Factory Girl, the film based on Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol. It has given me much food for thought today. Any time Edie is referenced, Andy Warhol inevitably comes up, but not so much the other way. They had been so important to each other, and Edie really benefitted from their all encompassing friendship, but she also wasn't able to grow in her own right because of it. In ways, it destroyed her.
The aspect of all of this that really pulls at my heart is that after she dies, it's almost a bother for him to have to acknowledge her. He is detached. She was an observation that he was lucky enough to make and benefit from. While she will be remembered as he defined her, he had moved on and didn't care to recognize the influence they had on each other as more than just an acknowledgement in a citation. I don't mean to demonize Mr. Warhol, as I think he was a genius. I do feel that his detachment from his subjects wasn't just an artistic decision, but also a personal way of dealing with people and things.
I bring this up in reference to my own feelings of love and abandonment. I had a similar platonic love affair for much of my life. I gave my heart and soul to a friend that I felt I couldn't live without. I dealt with his jealousy if I dated another man. If I spent my time comforting another friend, there was no end to the maltreatment or arguments I endured. I gave him money, groceries, rides, and other trinkets when he needed or asked for them, never asking for anything in return. I do not hold this against him, as I gave of my own free will. We had a purely platonic relationship for years. We had arguments and make ups, and people referenced us as being part of the other. We would eat from both our plates while not even noticing: he'd take my onions, I'd take his tomato, he'd slide me some veggies, and I'd slip him some of my salmon filet, all in the midst of conversations about movies, tv shows, sports, or whatever was trendy at the moment. When he was in the hospital, I stayed to take care of him, carrying him to the bathroom and back, helping to bathe and change him, keeping him company so he wasn't alone. He is the closest thing to a husband that I have had at this point in my life. Sadly so.
The one thing that was always made plain during our arguments, where he would say incredibly cruel things, holding ridiculous things against me for years, even hitting me with a car door during one of them, was that we were both in the friendship for different reasons. I was in it because I loved my friend. He was in it because he felt entitled to my friendship and all I had to offer. He didn't know how, nor did he care to love me, even as a friend, in return. It took me a long time to learn that not everyone cares in the same way, or even at all. That some people are detached, and do take advantage of those that care about them. My friend did that. I don't hold it against him, as I think that the only way he knows how to care is selfishly so. I don't want him in the same room with me, though. I've learned my lesson there. It took 20 years, but I learned.
After a lesson so thoroughly learned, I thought that I would be able to see another selfish man that is unable to care about anyone from a mile away. Not so. I realize now that I was making the same mistake with the fighter, who wrapped me around his finger, kept looking down on what I had to offer, though he greedily took all of it. He offered compliments when he saw fit, but increasingly told me where I needed to improve. I ate it up, feeling that he was investing in me, and the few compliments he would give were timed precisely when I needed them, and kept me going to him. I don't blame him for my actions in this, either. I am a grown woman, and I know better than to allow a man to tell me what my value is as a woman. Where I do blame him, as I do my friend, is that after the fact, it turns out that while I had put myself to be in a position to be defined in reference to them, they would barely have me be a footnote to them.
I am not a footnote, a citation, or even a sidenote. I am story, a mixed up, enchanting, charismatic, and endearing love story. If a man isn't ready to give in to me, I need to stop giving up to them, even in situations of friendship.