All The Small Things

Mood: Introspective
Listening to: Loren

Further to my previous post...

A big round of applause to Shane, for teaching me that affection isn't what I'm looking for either.

Or perhaps just that particular brand of affection. One sided, heavy handed, overwhelming and all encompasing affection.

I don't want that sort of cloying attention. To be needed. I have no desire for that. I have no need for that.

So if it isn't sex, and it isn't affection, what is it that I'm after?

What I would like is a man that doesn't need me, but rather a man who wants me. A man who wants me more for my personality, intelligence and spirit than for my physical self.

A man who knows his heart, and expects me to know mine. A man who doesn't presume to know what is in my heart, but who waits for me to share it with him.

A man with emotional intelligence, who knows the importance of dealing with problems as they arise, and the value of honesty between two people.

I want a man who can respect my decisions. A man who will allow me to grow as a person, understanding that change and loss are not synonomous. A man who is himself growing as a person.

A secure, grounded and honourable man.

 

Have I changed so much? Thinking on it, if Shane had come along 12 months ago, I probably would have thought that he was God's gift.

For so much of my life, I've based my opinion of myself on what the significant other in my life thought of me. I've allowed them to compose the music of our life together. I think I even liked them based on whether or not they liked me. You love me?... I love you too. Not the other way around. Never the other way around.

Mr. D. is the only exception. I loved him from the first moment I saw him. I love him still. 

Yet I still don't think that it was an equitable relationship in many ways. Perhaps equitable is the wrong word. Maybe we were both too immature for a relationship of that magnitude - and our immaturity was our undoing. We became so much a part of each other that we didn't know who we were on our own anymore, if indeed we ever did. Then when things got hard, we didn't have the inner reserves to deal with that. We were so connected that I couldn't discern who's pain was who's anymore, who's anger was who's, or what it was about. Perhaps there was an innate rage within each of us, rage that our chance to be was just slipping away, and we were powerless to stop it.

I wonder at the changes that Mr. D. leaving have wrought in me, the changes that I've wrought in myself, making informed decisions about who and what I want in my life. Where was this person hiding? This strong person I've become?

Perhaps she was always there, waiting for the time when I would be ready to step into her shoes. Everyday, I feel more and more like they are MY shoes. I like it - this strength of being.

Maybe the reason I am struggling so much with Shane is that I don't like him. I mean, he's a nice enough person, but I don't find myself wanting to see him. I'm not attracted to him in the romantic sense at all, yet he obviously feels quite strongly for me. In the past, that would have been enough. I get the feeling that he thinks it should be enough. He has an arrogance about him, he's used to women falling over themselves when he shows them affection. He's used to women who need to be needed.

I don't need to be needed.

I will not settle.

 

How do I reconcile this strong woman with the person who swoons when she see's Guy #2?

I guess one of the benefits and downfalls of being human is that we are multifaceted. There is some comfort in that. Something I learned in the last year or so: I am more beautiful for my flaws, they make me the person that I am. So there is a part of me that gets silly girly crushes. There's also a part of me that cries with others in their sorrow, a part that loves my friends with abandon, a part that can see the gifts in the most dire of circumstances.

I can be strong and swoony. And I'm not even going to deride it. Its who I am, and thats OK with me. That in itself feels like an acheivement.