A Work In Progress

 Think of your situation, your position in life today. If someone had told you five, ten, twenty years ago, that you would be where you are today, would you have believed them; or would you have laughed at them told them how crazy they were for imagining such things? Yet here you are.

No one ever knows what is going to happen in the future. There is a saying “God laughs while we make plans”. Does this mean we should never make plans? Does this mean we should never aim for something? Well that brings to mind another saying; “If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time”.

When I was in my twenties, there were a few things that I thought I knew for sure. I would be a “home owner” someday, I was never going to get married, I would never have children of my own, I would be educated, and even though I believed I would never get married, I believed that at some point I would find that ever elusive “true love”. I believed that I would find my birth parents and would finally at some point have the answer the question that plagued me from the moment I found out for sure that I was adopted, “Who the hell am I?” How much of that actual came to fruition? All of it, except for the never being married part. I did get married but I also got divorced, well, soon to be divorced.

If someone had told me in my early twenties “You will find your “true love”, the perfect match for you, and you will find him in the same person twice in your life but you will choose to let him go twice as well”, I would have said “You’re nuttier than a fruitcake”. But, I did find him. I actually found him early on. I was pretty sure that it was him too. But I let him go. Why? Because at the time I was young, very young, too young to really realize what I found; to young to realize that was the moment. But in my heart I knew, I felt, I did believe. Once I let him go and he was gone, I often changed what I believed. There were periods that I believed there was “one lid for every pot” and there were others where I believed that you could find your “perfect match” more than once in your life. After marriage, I now know the truths I hold to be self evident. I don’t propose this for anyone else but myself. For me, there was and always will be only the one. And though we found each twice, and I let him go twice, it doesn’t change anything regarding my feelings toward him. You see, loving someone doesn’t just mean that you love them unconditionally; it also means loving them enough to let them go. While he himself is the perfect match for me, his behavior and the timing of everything was off each time so I had to let him go, both times.

There won’t be a third time and that’s fine. I consider myself luckier than most. Many never find anyone they feel really understands them, really “gets” them. Many never find someone that they have so much in common with there is nothing to fight about. Many never find someone they can talk to about their work and that person completely understands and is not bored to tears. Most never find that person who feels, understands and can participate in their talent, their gifts, the thing that makes them unique and interesting. So, if only for a while I had that. I was able to know and feel what that was like. And I can take that with me wherever I go.

I am a work in progress. So many things yet still to do with my life. It won’t be over till I’m buried in my plain wooden box so I’ve got work to do; shards of a vessels to collect; pieces of light to bring together; further enlightenment to find; more scholarly endeavors to attend to. I think back to a time last year when my kitchen sink broke and I spent the afternoon curled up on my kitchen floor in agony, pain and heartbreak like I have never known washing over me, surrounded by literally “everything under the kitchen sink”, hour after hour, waves of sobs uncontrollably emanating from me because I believed my life was over. I believed I couldn’t live without my “love”, that life was at its end for me. I begged God, apologized for all those I’d hurt in seeking to have the one person I’d wanted most in my life, pleaded, made deals, if he would just help me make it work or take the pain away or just kill me now because I didn’t want to live like this. If someone had told me that day “You WILL get over this”, I would have cried out “NO I WON’T, I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS!”  It really does go to show that you actually can never know what will happen in the future. I did get over it. I am after all, a work in progress. 

He's Just Not That Into You

I saw this movie again this weekend and every time I do I’m reminded of the biggest lesson I’ve ever had to learn in my life and probably the longest it’s ever taken to learn it, over 19 months but at the end of it, I think I finally got it.

As women we never forget the first boy we ever had a crush on. In my case it was Kenny Bickins. At six years old, Kenny, who was 12, was my world. Then when I finally got the chance to talk to him, when he finally noticed me after months of following him around the apartment complex we lived in, he had me lie on his back on a Rough Rider sleigh and sent us both head first down a hill that ran the length of the complex, right into a tree at the bottom. The wind was rushing in ears, the smell of his hair and his coat blowing into my nose, the feel of the front of my whole body lying on top of his back, our legs intertwined,  at six years old, I had no clue what I was feeling, I just knew it felt good. And then came the bottom, the hitting of the tree, and the wind completely knocked out of me. I rolled off him, trying desperately to breathe, thinking I was surely going to die, feeling like an idiot because I was making noises that sounded remarkably like a trained seal. He asked if I was alright, slapped me on the back a couple times to get me breathing again telling me the whole time not to panic, that everything would be ok. Then he picked up his sleigh, ran back up the hill and never spoke to me again.

As women we tell each other all kinds of stories, fairy tales if you will. “Oh, he’s not calling because he lost your number”, “he’s not calling because he is intimidated by how beautiful you are”, “he’s not calling because he’s afraid of how smart you are”, “he's probably not calling because he’s been really busy with work”, blah blah blah. Fairy tales. From the moment we are little girls liking little boys, we’re told “Oh, he punched you because he likes you”, “he said mean things to you because really, he likes you”. Every time a guy acted like a jerk we’re told “Oh it’s because he likes you”. This is why we set ourselves up for disappointment; why we accept all kinds of behavior from men because really “he likes us”. That’s why he acts like an ass and treats us badly. "Really he likes us". Soon, we’re all going to have to wake up from this fairy tale and realize that any man that really wants you will make it happen. If he’s not making it happen, he’s just not that into you, period, no ifs, no ands, no buts, and no excuses. If a man wants you, he will make it happen.

We’ve all heard the stories about the friend of a friend who had a date with this guy and then he didn’t call for a year, when he finally did, they went out on another date and that was it. Now they’re married with a house in suburbia, a white picket fence and 2 ½ kids. We’ve all heard the story of the girl who meets a guy in the grocery store aisle and they both knew immediately they were “meant to be”. Now they’re happily married. And of course there is the ever enchanting “friend” story. You know, the one where the girl and guy are friends for years and suddenly wake up one day and realize they really love each other and they are now living happily ever after. What we want so desperately to believe is that this is the rule. It’s not. It’s the exception, and the sooner we get realistic about that, the sooner we can start living our lives for ourselves. We can all hope for our exception to come along one day, but we have to live by the rule. It’s much less disappointing that way and gives us empowerment and sends us out into the world on an even playing field. And that my friends is your happily ever after. Living your life strong in yourself, strong in your own knowledge that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.