Each failed relationship is getting me closer to finding the man I long for.
I wonder where you are this very moment, what you are doing, and how your day has been.
I wonder where in our world you are; sometimes I look at my world map and realize what vast lands exist to cover searching for you amongst billions. I could live in so many places, and I will roam the world, so you could be anywhere. I have left a bit of my heart on each beach I have walked; maybe you picked a piece up one day disguised as an oddly shaped and coloured pebble that had no business being on that particular beach. Maybe you’re in Bali, in the jungle and the damp, oppressive heat; I want to live there. Maybe you’re in Spain; I will be there in August. Maybe you live in my home-town right now, just down the road, around the corner, and I don’t know it.
Are you currently married? Do you have children? I wonder if you’re happy with your life, content with its cadence, or if you are also alone wondering where I am.
◊♦◊
I don’t care what you look like. I guess I have a type, tall with dark hair, but I have also loved someone shorter than me, so it doesn’t matter what package you show up in. I have loved blue eyes and brown. Green eyes are my favourite, but I haven’t ever loved anyone with green eyes, yet. Maybe you have green eyes. I find goatees sexy, but I hate beards and moustaches, go figure that one out. I don’t care if you wear glasses, as long as you can see me. Really see me, and be fulfilled with what you see. I don’t care what colour your skin is; the most beautiful man I have loved had skin the colour of a lightly toasted coffee bean. I am open to you in whatever manifestation you arrive in this time. Lord knows the gift box I am contained within is a bit tattered around the edges.
I don’t care about your heritage. I love being challenged with a new culture, burning my tongue on new peppers and spices and mispronouncing a new language. You will be endeared by my efforts as I trip over myself trying to assimilate into your world. I don’t care about your religion. We will respect the individuality of spirituality enough that you will honour my need to pray to the Universe, meditate, occasionally smudge, burn incense, differentiate between my soul and my ego, and talk about energy in the same breath as God. In return, I will respect your practise of whatever faith brings you peace, understanding and love.
◊♦◊
I want to recognize your souls light in your eyes. I want to know that in previous lives we have loved and lost each other, and we found our way back home in this lifetime, again. I want to believe we are fated, that all the pain and shit I have gone through was to prepare me for your greatness, to ready me to be the partner you deserve.
We will hold hands when we sleep, our limbs tangled, and reach out in the night to reassure ourselves that the other is not an apparition; that is the sort of love I want in our space. I want occasional moments of awe and reverence for the time we have together. Those moments when it all drops away as if the camera lens had tightened to capture just us.
You will be a loving and gentle soul of great quiet strength, and emotional intelligence, with bursts of sporadic enthusiasm, wonder and childishness. I want you to sing along with me in the car, and pretend you don’t notice when I get the words wrong, which is almost never. I want you to randomly dance with me around the house, to really age inappropriate music. I will never grow old, and neither will you. I want you to be silly, in the childish asshole way I can be sometimes. We will go to the park and eat ice cream on the swings while we quack at the ducks.
You will flirt with me, just because you can; you’re skilled at it. You enjoy the art and you flirt with everyone. I need you to read when to pull entire fistfuls of my hair and slap my ass, and when to hold your mouth against mine so I can breathe in all the intimacy and tenderness you hold in a well of deeply committed love and respect.
I need the occasional meandering philosophical conversation about issues that affect our hearts and souls, not just mindless gossip. I am not the woman who cares what the neighbour is doing, who at the office is cheating on who, or what the “it” celebrity wore last night, unless those issues profoundly touch you in some way.
You are capable of truly accepting my flaws in case I never succeed at beating them down, although you occasionally encourage me gently to rise above my weaknesses. I will do the same for you.
You will respect the cost I paid for not living an authentic life before now, even if you can’t understand my journey, and accept that I won’t budge on certain things, so please don’t let me let myself down. I know the four things I need daily to function well; join me if you want, no pressure, but I expect you to know your keys to well-being too. When I need to write, when I have been inspired, or I am troubled, I need you to let me walk away from what we are doing and have solitude for a time so that I can capture the exhale of meaning before it dissipates.
You will understand my need to be alone sometimes. And I get that you will need that too. I promise I won’t be insecure or freak out; just tell me about the adventure or the stillness when you come back to me.
I want you to read with me on a beach, and excitedly interrupt my reading to tell me your new ideas. I want us to read to each other in bed. I want you to be inspired by the world we live in and share that with others. I need you to be a life learner; a seeker; curious. I want you to lift me, hold me accountable, and encourage and inspire me to move into my greater power.
We will travel and explore regularly; I could happily be homeless. I don’t know how we will live in a world that demands paper money to survive, but I want you to believe with me that we will, so we will. You won’t have a boring, soul sucking job you hate just to pay the bills, this I am sure of. I didn’t walk away from mine to watch you die a slow death in yours. You will love what you do because it is making the world a better place somehow, even if that is only through your own joy and satisfaction. I know you won’t be someone who settles for mediocrity or good enough, someone who just gets by or is happy with the status quo. I want someone to conquer the world with me.
◊♦◊
I never want you to fear me; there is nothing more painful than reading in my lovers eyes that he is leaving me because he was too afraid to rise up and meet me. It is agony to see that he would rather leave my life than be brave and steadfast and do the work together that it would take to climb up to the next viewpoint. I am not the easy path, and I am demanding as hell, but I will give back as much as I ask, and we will be glorious together. I need you to trust in me, and our strength as a couple, enough that you show me your guts. You must never try to protect me from the world or mange my feelings. I need you to believe that I am strong enough to hear you.
I can’t contain who I am anymore than you can you and I don’t want to hide or minimize the crazy loving mess I am anymore than I want you to hide you. We need not change each other, we need only to be grateful that we finally found each other.
I hope that day comes soon. In the meantime, I hope you are deliciously satisfied with your time and space right now. I am creating a life I love while I wait for you and I trust you are doing the same.
Originally published at The Good Men Project.