The Road to Him

All of my experiences led me to him.

The other day I pulled out one of my old journals that captured my life at the age of 25, and I read every scribbled page. A common theme I noticed from the words of my younger self was how desperately alone I felt in the love department. I wanted to find true love, and what I know now that I didn’t know then is that it would be eight whole years before I would meet the human with whom I would finally experience the meaning of true, wholesome, respectful, kind love. Pure. Unconditional.

I shudder when I think of what I put myself through. How I settled for less than I should have. How fearful I was, and how I chose relationships that were not good for me. Until everything exploded, time and again, in the exact same ways. Patterns. Signs to wake up and choose differently and make change.

At last, at 31, on my face at rock bottom in the pits of betrayal, I finally saw the light. Found clarity. Saw the wounds I needed to heal myself. Realized the lesson I had so very needed to learn, for life had been serving up the same obstacles over and over again as opportunity to overcome them. To grow. Evolve.

And so I did. I consciously walked through a door and closed it behind me. A new chapter. A new way of living and loving. I listened to my self. I learned to trust, once more, the person I was. I surrendered to something greater than me, and discovered a whole new sense of faith. I released control and let go of fear. I chose love. Some say this is the miracle: the transition from fear to love.

And then, when I was free of desperation and pain and fear, when I was the most whole version of myself I had ever been, the most wonderful human being just slid into my life. A gift from the gods. A man of virtue and love unlike any I’ve known.

We all have our paths and if we listen to our hearts, trust where we are and surrender to what is, life seems to bring us right to where we belong, ultimately. It might take years of loneliness and even heartache, as it did for me, but I wouldn’t change a thing about my journey to finding love. Corny, yes, but whatever cus it’s all true.

Today

I awoke this morning with words on my tongue. And then they got pushed aside.

Through the window as I wandered clumsily back to bed from the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of the glow of snow, a world of white still cloaked in darkness.

Blue.

The snow is fading now, and so is the silence it brings.

The morning is fading now, and so is the magic it seems.

…

My heart beats into my right temple.

I have a million stories to tell, a billion words to write, and as soon as I sit down in front of a blank page, everything disappears into dust. I could never write as fast as my mind moves, and choosing one thing means not choosing all the others.

…

Lately I drive and I listen to Anne Lamott. Shauna Niequist. Women who write what they know. Their truth. Their lives. The perfect imperfections. The smallest molecule of importance and significance becomes the only thing of importance or significance. That is life. This.

The emptiness. The quiet. The boredom. The confusion. The I should. The what if. The messy desk and the dirty dishes. The cat and dog hair that never seems to leave every surface in this home. The search for meaning. The fear.

The stack of work. The lists of tasks, and the task of lists. Say that five times fast.

Maybe there doesn’t have to be a point. Or meaning. Maybe the story doesn’t need a moral. Maybe it is what it is and that’s enough. Perhaps there doesn’t have to be a climax or an ending, or even a beginning really. Isn’t everything just cycling about anyhow?

In my car, on the open roads, with everything passing by but still in front of me and also behind me. This is where I feel something move. Everything comes together. Intersects. The past and the present and the future are all in the same exact moment in time and space. Everything makes sense.

And so, often, I get behind the wheel and I just go. I drive in whatever direction calls me. And with each mile, a little more of me unravels and untangles until I know what I need to do. Until I am aligned with something greater than me.

Saturday Morning with Love

It’s Saturday. I bring hot coffee to his side of the bed, singing “the best part of waking up… .” I watch him as he wakes.

The furrowed brow and wild hair. The sleepiness in his eyes. For a moment, I see the boy in him. There is an innocence in sleep.

He moves slowly until he’s propped up against the wall. He gr

atefully takes the cup from my hands. He’s beautiful. I run away and in a moment I am back, taking his photograph. I must capture that beauty.

He hasn’t said a word in the two minutes since he woke, but I’ve said so many already. He’s still processing the return to waking life and I’m fluttering about him, as I do. Singing, chatter-ing, photographing.

For some, it might be too much.

Too much energy.

Too much intensity.

Too much.

For him, it’s just me.

And he accepts me and loves me, as I totally am. He lets me do what I need to do. He lets me be me. He doesn’t try to turn my volume down, for he’s an intelligent man, and he knows that to turn down a woman’s volume is to dim her light, to quiet her song, to fade her true colors.

And then what is left to love?

But this man, this man, he sets me free.