love at first sight or a moment of potential

Stories and songs make much of the idea of love at first sight. But what I’ve found most amazing, even miraculous, is the potential in that moment you first meet a future lover or partner. I keep recalling the day I met my husband with a sense of absolute wonder. I had no idea that this was the person who would be my perfect match and my future life partner. He was a complete unknown. Given how compatible we are, it almost seems as if there should have been some indication. The thunderbolt. A flash mob singing the hallelujah chorus. But there was nothing theatrical, just attraction, interest, and curiosity.

I’m so glad that our relationship is unfolding just the way it is. I think of love at first sight as being a kind of assumption of knowing or even faith, which implies a lack of curiosity, a lack of openness to the possibilities. It almost seems as if you’re putting that person in a box before even knowing them. Isn’t it best to make as few assumptions as possible, especially while you’re getting to know someone?

The experience of falling a little more in love all the time is just amazing. The ever-increasing, ever-escalating emotion and attachment, the strengthening of our bond over time… it’s beautiful. The more I get to know him, the more comfortable he is around me, the more he trusts me, the more I love him. When I show him some new less-than-stellar aspect of myself and he accepts it, my heart breaks open just a little more. With each new revelation of some aspect of his character, of his self, of his thoughts, I have more to love.

While there are many moments of overwhelming hormones and emotions, of love exploding like a volcano, I think one of the best things about our relationship is how it keeps building over time, like layers of lava creating new land.

I know the price I am willing to pay

I dreamed last night that I was walking with a group of people down a path through the forest. Someone approached us and told me that my lover had died. My world went white for a moment with the shock of it, and then all the color drained out of everything, and all the joy. The trees grew together over my head, and the sky darkened even though it was the middle of the day. People reached for me, but I was alone. They couldn't touch me. I felt myself sinking underground, the dirt and rocks falling along with me. There I was again in that dark pit of grief, where no light and no laughter could reach me. I know that place well.

This dream reminded me of something I've never forgotten. All love ends in heartbreak for someone. By loving again, by loving so deeply, I’m accepting this. Pain is the price of love. I came into this relationship walking fully in that awareness. I could never be as open as I was, as I am, without that knowledge, without knowing what exactly it is that I am accepting. I know the price I am willing to pay.

2016-04-14

I was alone, and it was beautiful.

Sometimes I astound myself

with how much love I can hold 

inside this body.

My lovers

each one so different from the next

and the beloveds of my beloveds.

the beauty that surrounds me

and strongest of all

after the first shock

the new life inside me

protected with everything I had

loved beyond any previous imaginings.

There was a time

not so long ago

when I felt that romantic love,

for me,

was over.

That time of my life was past.

I seethed and suffered,

internally railing

against the unfairness of it all,

the fairy tales and love songs

that lied and lied,

that perfect partnership

forever out of reach,

a life of loneliness ahead.

But somehow

one day,

I finally felt whole

within myself.

No need of anyone else

to fill an emptiness inside.

No emptiness was there.

Nothing missing.

I was alone

and it was beautiful.

And from this place

of no expectation,
love blossomed.

2016-04-12