Am I outgrowing my original intentions?
I’m sure you, like me, made a pact with people somewhere along the line that whenever you get to a certain age or period in your life and you’re both still single, you’ll marry them. Of course, thank the lord that most of us don’t still TALK to those people (and God help us if they looked us up on Teh Interwebs and made us honor our promise!), but it’s interesting to look back and see how far you’ve come. I mean, look what we otherwise would have SETTLED for!
My mom — whom I haven’t talked to in a few days — called today because her witchy sixth sense told her I was up to something I wasn’t sharing. (Seriously, you don’t get away with SHIT when your mom’s a psychic!) And I was telling her about the news in my life and how it’s exciting to look forward but how there’s always that little part of you — no matter how much you try to bludgeon it — that always wonders “what if” about someone else.
A friend of mine has always joked with me that it would probably take me being in a white dress and standing at an altar for someone I’d once had my heart set on to show up and raise an objection because he wasn’t the one I was marrying. Actually, I’m sure it’s less of a joke than a hope on both our parts.
But you move on. It’s literally that simple. The hard part is not looking back.
I was trying to explain to someone recently that while I don’t really think I’ve been in any serious relationships, as it were, I can safely say I’ve had more than my fair share of truly torrid emotional affairs. I hold most date-type people at arm’s length, literally and figuratively, because I don’t think they could take the earth-shattering passion that resides in my heart and is fighting so hard to be unleashed.
I give that passion to my work, my writings, and maybe even the things I shouldn’t be doing. 😉 But when it comes to humans? It’s interesting. I mean, if someone’s dead to me, they’re dead — no more, no less, no looking back. But when they’re alive in my imagination and under my skin? Oh my God. The sex organ you want to stimulate in me first is my brain. Trust me, the rest will respond in kind once that’s turned on!
I think back on the mindblowing emotional affairs in my world, and they’re my favorite to remember. I can still feel so many of the moments when I fell for those people — of my eyes widening, my sighs deepening, the goose bumps prickling. But that’s the thing — the most-intense relationships I was involved in weren’t always paired with true skin-on-skin stimulation.
I don’t think I set out to separate sex and love. Believe me, I anticipate that they SHOULD co-exist; I just haven’t seen it yet. I’ve had to get each from different people. A friend always calls it, “Building the Perfect Man” — find a nice cadre of people to fill your various needs, as apparently it takes five different guys to fill them all. 🙂
Although, I admit, I’m getting tired in my “old age.” I don’t know if one really would fill all the needs, but I’d love to whittle it down a bit because I can’t keep everyone straight sometimes. 😉 I think that’s why most guys either don’t like to talk or just like to talk about themselves — it’s far easier than to try to remember which girl likes what flowers and who said what to him that he should have remembered.
Anyway, I got distracted and forget what my original thought was in writing this tome. Maybe it’s just my ongoing quest for the total package who gives me the mental calisthenics that I love so much as well as the physical ones that, well, I also love so much. 😉 I’ve always settled for one or the other (and have had untold experience with having NEITHER). One can only hope I’m on my way to having both from the same source.
Maybe my point was that my mom mentioned to me about one of those emotional cliffhangers that I always hoped would come to a resolution might just be left that way. “I always thought you’d end up with ___,” she said. “But maybe you’re outgrowing him.”
It was a ponderous moment. Because I always thought I was the one who had to grow IN to him. (No puns, please. I’ve already thought of them all!) It was both freeing and terrifying, because the part of me that wanted it so badly has also grown very tired, while the rest of me that was counting on that as my destiny suddenly realized, oh shit, it’s time for Plan B (more like Plan P, Q or R, actually).
But really, how is moving on a bad thing, either way?
I wonder what our heroine will do when she isn’t always on the lookout for something that’s missing anymore. Or will she always be looking for something more?