I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert in love. Scratch that. I wouldn’t even call myself a medium-level student. I’ve walked around with so many certainties about how to have great relationships, and be in them, and stay standing tall in your own space, but still holding someone else up, too, and moving forward instead of pulling away, and watching your thoughts, and fighting clean and on and on and on…and I’ve had a string of short and often not-so-sweet relationships. Busted, broken, wrenched apart. Finito.
So I wouldn’t call myself an expert in this kind of love. I definitely wouldn’t call myself that.
But here I am nearly one year into the most deliriously happy, easiest, most honest, nourishing, soul-to-soul, heart-to-heart relationship I’ve ever been in. And he is WONDERFUL. He is a shining star in my universe and a gift to this planet. Yes, it’s like that. It gets better: One day just over a year ago I met my soul sister friend Carol in a field beneath the sun and we shared our dream partners with each other; men who would meet us where we are, grow with us as we evolved, and dive deep into a kind of love we’d never had before. I looked at my page after telling her all about this man and said to her, “But Carol, look at this guy, look how wonderful he is–how could he possibly exist?” She looked me in the eye and said, “I believe in him.” So I did, too.
A few weeks later he showed up. No kidding. Everything on my list–and more. My dream man.
And here we are, nearly one year in–and I’m cracking apart. I’m tossing on the waves of fear in my mind, hearing my own voice tell myself: “This won’t last. You don’t know how to have a lasting relationship. You don’t know how to nurture one; you’ve never really tried. You’ve never been able to do it before. Why would you be able to now?” Wave after wave after wave. Day after day after day.
The voice is ceaseless. It’s relentless. “This will end. They all do.”
Today I just got so damn tired of hearing that voice. I was so tired of being tired-out by it, shackled by it, harangued by it. So I sent a message up to the sky. “Please, I need your help. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to make it work.”
And then, in a voice like my mind but so much calmer, lighter, and so absolutely FULL of love, came a reply: “You don’t have to make it work. You just need to meet each moment as it comes.”
( )—( )—( )—( )—( )—( )
Stillness came back. I sank beneath the waves into the depths of the ocean. I felt the shackles come off. I exhaled. I’m okay. It’s going to be okay.
You don’t have to make it work. You just need to meet each moment as it comes.
With love,
L
1 Comment
I think you hit the nail on the head with “easiest, most honest”. It reminded me of a quote I saw recently (attributed to Michelle Obama): “Trust your instincts – good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful.” In my experience, that’s exactly true. The good relationships are the ones that just happen, just unfold, just work. with some effort, of course, all relationships take effort. But without the kind of effort that causes you pain.