I was raised to believe that love or romance came in something of a one-size-fits-all package. Sure, it occurred at different times and perhaps presented in different wrapping, but the guts were inherently the same. It was that very notion, that sentiment, that made me think that I was somehow broken. Life had thrown me my share of relationships, big and small, but each one was missing a piece, a bit. Most of the time that bit was me. I wasn’t fully present, totally honest, or really me. I was withholding, pretending, or accepting less than. I was ever wanting and waiting and hoping. I was unsatisfied and too fucking scared to open my mouth and say something.
My wanting wasn’t in the form of a husband or children. It wasn’t a fancy house or a modicum of security. It was the feeling of home. It was the feeling of comfort in my own skin around another human. For all the passion and excitement, a piece of me was utterly absent. It was a gnawing feeling that kept me awake at night, staring at the shadows flickering on darkened ceilings. It was the unrest that led to dishonesty and depression. It was a feeling that went unnamed and mostly unidentified. It was a restlessness that I couldn’t quench.
My dysfunctional stories of woe were captivating, horrifying, and amusing. They generated pity, disdain, confusion and protectiveness in those who knew some of what went on, which was of course all the impetus needed to disclose nothing further. Truth be told, I felt all those feelings myself. Why did I stay? Why didn’t I leave? Why couldn’t I see? Did I really love or was it just a ghostly visage of love, floating over the need to be more regular?
I told myself I was ‘okay’ with so much that I was not okay with for fear that self-reflection would turn up more questions that I didn’t have the emotional fortitude to answer. I saw so much that was broken around me and yet, I wanted to trade what I had for the appearance of it all. I wanted to feel unremarkable in my needs and desires. I wanted to be just like everyone else.
If I could just accept what the universe was delivering to me, if I didn’t question anything, then maybe I could find the bit of happiness that was falsely advertised in spades around me. Yes, I will give up my friends for you. No, I don’t really need to be touched. Yes, I am can recover quickly from daily criticism arising from someone else’s raging insecurity. No, I don’t really need alone time. Yes, I can shrink down to a teeny tiny something or other to avoid offending delicate sensibilities and egos. No, this shrinking does not make me feel conflicted and broken. Yes, I am fine losing myself for the benefit of my relationship. No, I don’t believe my life is diminished when I am lost.
Holy fucking shit.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I was so lost. I was so gone. I was so desirous of something that I couldn’t even name and it was eating me alive. I was. I am not now. Now I recognize that the thing I most needed was me. I needed to find me again. I needed to be me. I needed to understand that the greatest satisfaction would come from exploring who I was and what I most wanted and then entering the world with those feelings in my heart and thoughts firmly planted in my mind. I needed to grasp that I could only attract people who nourished me if I knew how to nourish myself.
This is not some self-help rah-rah bullshit. This is the real deal. This is digging really fucking deep and understanding what makes ME tick. Appreciating the fact that other people may not appreciate those things that were my happy triggers, and it just didn’t fucking matter. I have never been and will never be a self-directed human. I am not out to harm anyone in the pursuit of my own happiness. I just simply no longer give a fuck whether what makes me happy also serves others in the process. My serving of those I love (or like, or work for) has absolutely nothing to do with me. That sounds crazy. I know. And yet, totally true. I can step outside myself and perform a duty and love up another human. I can separately consider what I need and what lights me up.
This is not an easy feat. This is one of the toughest things that you can do. This is where you ask yourself what you really want and need outside something bullshit societal paradigm or family pressure or friend influence. This is where you ask yourself what best suits you, what you need, what gives you all the feels.
I talk about this a lot and I do because it is THE THING. It is the very thing that will absolutely and unquestionably change your life. This is not about looking at your aunt and smiling and saying you never really wanted kids anyway and you feel so lucky that you can take a 7 am aerobics class without being accountable to another human. This is about feeling it so deeply that you need not say anything at all. This is where you begin to understand that the greatest love affair you will ever have is not with another human being. It is with YOU.
I know you are gagging right now. This sounds like some calendar quoted, poster generated nonsense. I promise you that it isn’t.
I could despise myself for the mistakes I’ve made over the years. Staying too long, loving too much, wanting too little, being dishonest, refusing to be truly accountable. So many flaws, so much to work on. The thing is that my self-loathing never suited me. It wasn’t a layer that I popped on that felt comforting and cozy. It covered me alright. It suffocated me. It felt like when the heat it is on just a little too high in your Uber and you are too intimidated to mention the overwhelming stifling feeling to your driver, and so you just count the minutes until you can get the FUCK out. I was counting the minutes until I felt better. No matter how many times I looked my mistakes and felt pissed off at myself, nothing changed. Ever. I just felt worse and worse. I just made worse decisions. It was the worst kind of self-fulling prophecy. I felt like an empty shell. I felt unlovable and so very unworthy.
I couldn’t change things by deciding that I was amazing and deserved all the goodness that life had to offer. I had to change things by first figuring out what I wanted, accepting what I wanted, and then accepting that whether I got it or NOT, it was all going to be just fine. If I didn’t get it or if I got just part of it, that was not a reflection me what I have to offer or who I am, or what punishment I deserved for the things I had done. It was just another lesson, another path.
Romance is not one-size-fits-all because it starts deep within us. It starts with understanding fundamentally who we are and what we want. We are all so different, how could there possibly be one formula that satisfies each and every one of us?
We if we set out in the world with that notion? What if we understood that we are all these mad scientists and each experience we have is just another experiment? Each and every interaction, relationship, success, mistake, heartbreak, love, is just another chance for us to do it better, to finally get it right?
I spend every day lately in the lab of my life trying to sort out what ingredients are what my potion really needs. It is not an easy endeavor but it is utterly satisfying because in the end, I am the direct beneficiary of my ultimate success. And yes, I do know that at some point I will be successful. How do I know that? Well my success is not measured by that one-size-fits-all metric or paradigm. My success is measured by the lightness of my heart and soul. It is measured by the clarity in my mind. It is measured by the amount that I laugh and the number of hugs I receive. It is measured by what thoughts enter my brain the moment I open my eyes in the morning and the moment just before I close them at night.
I don’t need someone to tell me what romance is or what is going to make me happy because I am slowly but surely figuring that out all by myself.
What about you? Do you have it in you to be the lead scientist in your own lab? Or are you going to let someone else be the boss of your happiness experiment?
Just a thought.
Until the next.
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 