I am not sure I believe in destiny. I mean, I have a lot of reasons in my life to believe, but I am not sure I do. Honestly, I should have probably given more thought to the concept before attempting to write about it. But, as usual, I am going to write about it in the hopes that the act of writing helps me sort it all out...
If I am not sure about destiny in its most basic form, I am really not sure how I feel about the destiny where love is concerned. I think I end up here: I do feel we are destined to love, just perhaps not an individual. We are destined in our lives to love others, but not perhaps a particular person. I think that people come into our lives, in the form of lessons. So perhaps maybe there is more destination involved than I previously let on. I know that I have had certain people come into my life, repeatedly, (meaning people as teachers, not the same person over and over again...although that has happened too) and the person shows up as a teacher of a lesson. One that I am usually stubbornly refusing to learn.
I think loving is inevitable in this life. If you are living you are going to be presented with many occasions to love. Perhaps just one person, perhaps many people. Chances are, it will be a mixed bag. Life is funny that way.
I know that I love my parents, and my kids. Neither set of relationships have been easy, and often times, frustrating to all concerned, but the love that was truly a destiny for me, one that I know not all people are guaranteed. Sometimes the love is not palpable between parents and kids so I really do count my blessings here.
I know that I have loved friends, since I was a child. I have felt deep, abiding love for people who I am not related to at all but feel a very kindred spirit. And I know that most, if not all of that kind of love, has faded for me over time. I have a tendency to out grow people. And I have moved around a great deal which is an intimacy buster for sure. Couple that with my avoidance of intimacy, and you have a one, two punch that pretty much kills intimate friendships. Truth is that I could not really tolerate it when I was younger, I was always bolting. Mostly in romantic relationships, but in a more in depth analysis, I have run from intimacy in all its forms. And am still doing so as I write this.
For me, it is easier to leave. I think ending the relationship is easier than remaining. Always. I can withstand the absence of the person, the end of the relationship so much better than I can withstand pain within it. Leaving is so much easier than remaining mired in something that doesn’t feel good. And, of course, my interests are always tightly wound up with feeling good. In fact, my whole life has been in search of whatever made me feel good. And changing if I was feeling badly. It has taken decades for me to be able to sit with hard feelings and not DO SOMETHING about them. True story.
As far as romance goes, I think loving is destined for all of us. However, I do not think loving a particular person is destined. I think timing, proximity, trauma, healing, recovery, and just plain old being in the right space at the right time have more to do with who we end up loving than the stars aligning and causing us to meet a particular person. Now as a reticent romantic, I kind of don’t like that I believe this, and I could be accused of falling prey to the idea that a particular person in my past was destined. But really I think the archetype of the person I became involved with more destined than that particular person. Meaning, looking at my childhood, I am drawn to certain people because of that childhood, and the faces and personalities have varied.
I think loving being everyone’s destiny is a pretty good lot in this life. However, I do know that often times our loving relationships are most destroyed by our own inability to love ourselves. We hate what and who we are, and so we pick people who treat us badly because we just can’t seem to care enough about ourselves to do it differently. But I do not think this is destiny either. You do the work to change yourself, heal your trauma, quell your addictions, you will end up feeling better about yourself, and then you will select better people in your life, and you will end up loving someone better than you picked before. Also a true story...
But as much as I have tried to rid myself of the fairytale notion that this one person was my destiny, there is still a part of me that holds out hope that this is true. That there is some large, benevolent force out there just tipping the scales in my favor, moving things and jobs and circumstances around so that a particular person will be brought forward into my life, and there a great love affair will be born. And today I am at a place where I am not sure that hasn’t already happened. Not really exactly what I thought I wanted, not at all how I thought it would all go down, but sometimes this love affair really does feel destined...and as always, I am never sure how long this particular destiny will last. I do not seem to be the kind of person that has lifelong destinies. I am more temporal in the whole destiny department.
So on this Tuesday morning, I leave you with this thought: are we destined just to love, or are we destined to love the people we do? Is love and loving always the outgrowth of living? Are we destined to love a particular person, or are we just destined to love in general, the specific who is really completely happenstance?
I really don’t know. I think I waver on this...mostly believing it is all a crap shoot, but sometimes, because I need to believe in something operating in some capacity greater than chance, I think I roll out my romantic idealism and give it a go. So far, that hasn’t worked all that well for me, or them, but I have to own that I absolutely do engage in this idea that a particular person is/was my destiny...and mostly this has been to all our demise...
For me, this whole notion of loving a particular person being my destiny has only worked towards hastening an end. And while I can’t really explain the why behind it, I could give you a great dissertation on the how.
I am not sure how I feel about all of this, it becomes a chicken/egg kind of thing for me. I get lost in the analysis. I just know that I have wished for a destiny love affair for the whole of my life, and because I am me, have always found some reason to leave. Doesn’t seem to matter whether destiny is involved or not...I am, in the end, ready to go, rather than do the work to remain. And perhaps the skill of leaving is the thing that will kill destiny and foul up the whole endeavor. Perhaps only those people with an ability to remain get the destiny partner, perhaps not. Truth be told, I think that there is likely far more going on in the depths of our being than the surface of us could ever ignite.
Perhaps life is destined to give us exactly what we need to grow us into more complete people and for each of us there is a predetermined number of people who are required to get us there...
I will let you know, I guess. For now, my head is throbbing with the idea that for some people there is just one, and for others, a million would not be enough. And the sad fact that I likely belong to the later group while living a life that really wished it belonged to the former.
And perhaps that is the greatest destiny killer, the idea that you should be doing it different, doing it in some other way than you are...perhaps this self directed alignment is what undoes us every time. Perhaps it is our own interference with destiny that creates all the confusion to begin with...
“Death cannot stop true love...it can only delay it for a little while.” The Princess Bride.
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