It seemed like such a romantic quest…such a good fairytale to make come true. I so wanted my life to tie up in a bow…but the awkward, messy, unthought through details have done me in.
When I was a little girl I imagined my life before me like a view onto a magical land of bliss that would take me far away from the trials and pains of childhood. I imagined the big beautiful post and beam house I’d live in surrounded by gardens in the country. In the morning sun would pool across the bed in the room where I awoke and curled up there beside me would be the love of my life. He was such a good man, such a kind man, such a good-looking man. He had sandy blond hair and blue eyes. And his great act that he would perform each day in my imagination that proved he was the man for me is that he would get up and make me breakfast.
That was it. I just wanted a kind man who would make me breakfast.
Versions of this fantasy continued… Sure, I got way more sophisticated about it all, but the basic frame stayed the same. Here is what I wrote in my notebook just this fall when I was reading the book, Calling in “The One”: 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life
“My intention is to know the love of my life as the love of my life and for the love of my life to know me as the love of his life by December 1, 2011.
And for this relationship to be based on self love, centered clarity, saying what we have to say, open giving and receiving, sense of creative making of our lives together including and honoring our solitude.
With room for children, community, abundance, health and well being, gardens, nature, good food, animals, and ART.”
Ouch. I cringe as I read this. Not because it isn’t a great vision I’m putting out there. But it has a fundamental flaw.
It gets way in the way of getting to know REAL people as the REAL people that they are (and that includes ourselves).
When we’re looking vehemently for “the one” it is hard to notice all the other perfectly-real-probably-more-interesting-than-we-realize-people-out-there. It’s hard to not get greedy and defensive and scared and close-minded and judgmental and did I mention scared?
That is right. It gets freakin’ scary when you start imagining every man you meet as “your possible one and only.” You start rejecting people before they have even opened their mouth! You start making mental lists of what is wrong with them and why it could never work “over the long term” before you get to the dessert course. Or at least I do….
The truth is we don’t know who we are going to end up loving or when.
We don’t know who we are going to partner up with, share homes and children and projects with, and which we aren’t…until of course we do. We don’t know if our partnerships are going to last of if our feelings will always be the same. And we don’t know if these relationships will look anything like our long held fantasies or not…although not is very, very likely.
And these sorts of truths aren’t very popular because they put us on uncertain ground. We might get hurt. We might feel. We might love so much we hurt and feel.
We also miss out on the possibility that there are relationships that could come into our lives that could bring us joy and fulfillment and deep affection and regard and great rolling around in the sack that may not be the person we “settle down with” but may be the person we grow in this moment with, discover our lives and ourselves and others with right now.
Exploration goes out the window when you are shopping only for your pre-fixed notion of whose “right.” Curiosity and creativity begin to shrivel up. And love, true love, well there is little room for it in the small-minded, certainty-loving, pre-fixed notions of our calculating mind.
Yes, I still want partner-love and possibly kids and lots of physical affection and the discovery of how love manifests in partner relationship. But the questing, the time-frames, the looking for an object to call “the love of my life”: DONE. NOT HAPPENING. OVER.
So here is my new vision and new intention I set today:
May I have lots of gorgeous relationships in this lifetime. May I not know what form these relationships will inhabit. May these forms be made up along the way. May some of them include sex and may sex the be altogether different and more interesting and courageous than what I’ve known or imagined. May children come into my care when the time is right if it is meant to be. And to paraphrase the brilliant Taylor Mac, may I bust out of my bubble of homogeneous thinking often and always.
And may you as well.
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Clicking the above Taylor Mac link will make you happy I promise. He IS the man of my dreams.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds like you’ve completed another spiral up the developmental helix, Jazzy.
http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1412092361
Luke 6:31 “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” I think they screwed up the translation (go figure)… replace do with Love and the thing works better.
Thank you for another couragous post! My advice to those who see themselves in this post… Love unto others… pass the truth on!
Wise words!
After that epiphany, I wouldn’t be surprised if you bump into the “one” tomorrow. Because now, there is no frame of reference. There’s no comparison. There’s just curiosity and openness and willingness. Very beautiful, indeed.
I’d be surprised:)
Bless the world where we leave behind the frames of reference.