So I have spent all this time trying to hash out love, marriage and divorce. This is after literally hours and hours of time thinking about these same topics. I have spent so much of my life with this outward focus of finding the right person, or at least dating. There has been so much time spent with my girlfriends talking about what kind of man we want...what he will look like. How he will behave. How he will treat us and others. Hell, we have even discussed what kind of job he will have and the like.
Married to this image of THE GUY is this idea of myself with this man. We are walking down the street, hand in hand, laughing in my head. I don’t know why this is the image that pops into my head but it is. I am carefree, fun. playful. There is a breeziness between us. An intimacy that is apparent even as we walk down the street, fully clothed. There is this lightness to us that is contagious.
My life long search for this man, finally allowed to become more like a casting call rather than a treasure hunt. I don’t have to go out and chase them down anymore. I can just live my life and if they are meant for the role they will show up for an audition. I don’t mean that like I am interviewing potential men, but you get the idea. I mean isn’t that what dating really is? A sometimes short, sometimes longer interview? Seems that way to me. Especially online dating...it is just an interviewing and weeding out process. A great shuffling of people. Too numerous to ever really get to know the person. I digress.
My point...yes I am going to get to it and I am only four paragraphs in! My point is that for a very long time, I acted and, in fact believed, that I was this woman holding this “perfect for me”man’s hand. I thought I was there. I thought I was her. For literally decades, I thought all that I needed was for him to show up and Viola! we were good to go! WRONG! SO VERY, VERY WRONG!
What I am coming to understand is that I was nowhere remotely close to being that woman! I was delusional. Seriously. I think what happened was that I was so focused on the guy that I forgot that I might have some major heavy lifting to do on my side. The guy that I imagined in my head, not really going to be attracted to the person I was then...or maybe even now.
Seems that is the course I have been set on since Lane left. Uncovering, discovering and discarding those parts of myself that are problematic in relationships. Finding out who I really am, the good, the bad and the ugly and finding a way to make peace with all the various parts. Finding a way to prioritize my life so that it was more than just a stand in role until Mr. Wonderful came along. My life more than just me standing around holding my breath and filling time until HE showed up. If I am honest, that is what my life was until about two years ago. Hell, maybe even a year ago. I was just renting time. Filling up space and time. Waiting for the day that I was walking down the street with that guy.
I am not sure when it began to change for me. Maybe I have been in this change forever. All those times that I was just exchanging one guy for the next, required prerequisites to get me to where I am now. But somewhere in the last two years, something began to be different. The image of the couple walking down the street together caused me to start asking new questions:
Am I that woman?
Um, fuck no.
Ouch. Ok, why not?
Well for starters, you are not that carefree. You are way more uptight than that woman.
Ok, how do I relax more then?
I am not sure. I think you just have to bring your shoulders down to where shoulders are supposed to be...for starters.
So I started hiking and cryking. I did a lot of this and it put my whole world into a different perspective. Everything became a little less of a big deal. Time spent in nature, healed that part of me that was always orbiting Saturn. Well, at least, brought me into a lower and less intense orbit. The physical demands of hiking somehow needed to shave off the sharp and pointy parts of me.
Ok, smart ass, what else you got?
Well, the woman in your head is more confident about who she is...that man isn’t going to change her mind or make her feel better about herself. She already feels good about her, he just exemplifies a feeling she already has, he is not the provider of that feeling. Understand?
Well, how the fuck do I do that?
I am not sure...it is totally, 100% an inside job on that one.
So I started living my own life. Everyday. I prioritized the things that were important to me. Not in an effort to attract someone else to my life, but for me to be attracted to my own life. I meditated and yoga’d everyday. This made me calmer, quieter, I felt more grounded. More in touch with what was going on inside my mind and body.
I am sure there is something else I am missing so let me have it?
The woman in this image is willing to allow this man to see her, to be intimate with him. You aren’t really that gal.
Then I started writing. I started pouring out all this shit that was always fumbling around in my head like bricks in a dryer. It took months of writing to find the courage to share it with anyone. First, I just shared it with my mom. That went ok so then I shared it with my girlfriends. The encouragement I received from my mom and The Tribe, enabled me to answer the call to start this blog. What happened was the more I wrote, the more I needed to write. Pretty soon I was writing every single day. It wasn’t even hard. I looked forward to it. Sometimes needing to take time to write multiple times a day.
The writing and sharing that writing has allowed me to be more intimate with myself and in turn whomever might read this blog. I feel like I am less afraid of you, of me and of the alchemy that happens when the two are mixed. No longer living in fear that too much of you, requires me to go away, and too much of me will surely make you go away. Altogether less concerned about who comes and who goes...more of an open invitation to whomever might walk into my life.
Ok, so what about now? What about right now? Am I closer to being this woman?
Totally. You are the closest you have ever been to being able to be the woman that holds that man’s hand...
And I know this to be true...from a place deep within me because I have hiked with her, meditated with her, yoga’d with her, I have written with her and about her. I know her. I have come to love her even with all her faults and issues. The great irony is that I have come to love her so much that I don’t really care so much about finding him...because the relationship I have with myself today is enough. If I go to the end of my days with just myself, I am ok with that. I don’t feel slighted or cheated. If I do ever end up holding that man’s hand, he better hold on tight, because that woman doesn’t fucking mess around. She is present, strong and fun. It seems to have taken forever but here she is. Finally, no longer willing to hold the hand of just any man because she is finally willing to hold her own.
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