Losing at Love

I don’t know what it is. Maybe I am a doormat. I am certainly pretty, strong, generous, kind, capable, a great cook, sassy, passionate, funny, smart, loving, kind, and tolerant of all kinds of people very different than myself. Sure, I am also, fickle, pissy, picky, cynical, sometimes bitter, whiny and too willing to trust people at their word. I give my heart away at the drop a hat (not my body, but certainly my heart). I am compassionate, and I secretly love people with strong personalities right or wrong. They’re like brightly lit archetypes. And I am a moth.

I have been trying to figure out what that is about, always losing at love. There is one man who rocks my socks and my world so totally, so completely, that I am a shapeless ball of uninteresting wax whenever I am near him. Neither one of my husband’s ever did this, although one came pretty close. I have loved and adored this particular man my entire adult life. I reconnected with him this past year and he made overtures of love at me that sent me reeling through time and space, and molecules. Since we are both grown-ups now, and have known each other forever, I chose to really believe him. Not just because the butterflies in my stomach and the rose garden told me too. Big mistake. Sort of…

I’ve spent two decades avoiding contact with him, and loving a memory because he is a confirmed bachelor. -Even before his own bad marriage. It’s crazy. I am crazy. I lose my balance so easily when he puts his hand in the small of my back, breathes on my neck, or even just smiles with his eyes and says something as simple as “hello”. If he makes contact with my skin I turn to liquid mercury, and melt into the carpet fibers to get lost amongst the pet dander. It can take me days to clear my head. What a boring conversationalist. I am no challenge at all. No wonder he loses interest. I probably would too.

I don’t NEED him. In fact a relationship with him would likely be the first ADULT one I’ve ever had. Believe me I have tried to resist his charm, and gorgeous smile. His playful banter while he spent 6 weeks trying to convince me how very compatible we are and right for each other. The light in his eyes and the way he reached for me when I talked about the space time continuum. I did resist. Really. I even tried to argue but didn’t have anything solid to stand on to prove my point. I could play hard to get, but I detest games, and I’ve wanted him a long, long time. Seeing him show some interest drove that home hard. Life is messy. This whole thing is so very bittersweet.
I have married men as different from this one as I could find, that still attracted me, and it’s made a huge mess of my life. Yes, I got a beautiful and amazing daughter, the first time I ran from his rejection. Yes, I learned body art and got to explore some fringe communities even more intriguing and extreme, the next time, when he moved back, and I avoided him. But I’ve never felt so totally adored, and seen, and valued as the four months my dream lover called, and wrote and pursued me, while allowing me to be the silly, clutzy, clingy, waif I sometimes am, welcoming me into his home, his arms, his time.

There is no need to give him a name. If I haven’t completely bored everyone to tears, and lost all my readers, then everyone who knows me already knows of whom I speak. Including this glorious creature himself. So go ahead, roll your eyes and shake your head and put it down to another rant of the ever dramatic Tamia. But find the strength to bear with me while I figure this out. This is lifting the veil of my psyche and the mask I usually wear. Jeepers! We human beings really are just a bundle of reactions and defense mechanisms sometimes. Even when we think we’re all enlightened and spiritual and educated.

All the self examination has made me realize how much the heartache of never fully capturing this man’s attention and affections has shaped the rest of my life, and relationships, and influenced my choices. When he actually exited my life I turned the empty longing I felt towards the next nearest friend with a flair for style. I admit it, I went a little redneck, but who wants a cheap duplicate of some original you can’t have? The constant reminder would be torture to a passion filled creature such as me. I convinced myself that this other person was the one that broke my heart, and instead tried to duplicate him in my later relationships. I am not that crazy or obsessed! I didn’t KNOW I was doing all this!

What is this crazy, crazy defense mechanism? Why are so many people jealous of me when I can’t seem to get what I really want? I only ever wanted to have a deep intimacy where my lover truly is my very best friend, and someone it is SAFE to trust completely; to explore the depths of trust and intimacy and realism in romance. But it seems that while they are still writing songs of love, they are not for me… So, I will settle for great looks, fame and fortune, and have a life that some will envy. But I love home! I love a home filled with the ones I love, and trust and can really be myself with. I love cooking tasty meals for them. I love all the mushy, soft, warm, romantic, snuggling that ensues with a lover you trust completely.

And the intimacy of folding the laundry while stirring the soup and stealing kisses. Sunday comics cozy in bed, with coffee cups and wet towels abandoned on the floor. Happy, lazy pets, ignoring the phone… If steamy sex gets added to THIS mix it’s just icing. I can’t even imagine the bliss. I have never seen it. What would this feel like? I would never get anything done. But who cares? Life in the arms of heaven needs no qualifiers.
I’ve made some really stupid choices, not fully knowing what I was doing in my youth. I guess we all have. Now, cleaning up the debris from days gone by, I feel like I have feet of clay, and a heart of stone. I want to be loved like that, who doesn’t? – Clearly some people don’t want to put into it what they want out of it. We’re all here for different reasons, and relationships are often difficult at best. Certainly they are not really for everyone. I am ready to have a grown up relationship or none at all. But I do not even know how to begin, and it certainly takes two on the same page.

So I have all my love to give and share and grow, and my lifelong crush still won’t have me and distance makes it forever unlikely, and honestly, no one else will do. I know that now. What’s left of my trust is little more than skin deep anyhow, and that doesn’t grow back so easily. So I am done seeking substitutes; two marriages gone badly showed me what a mistake that was. So I will sit this one out. Welcome to the bench. Damn. Now I feel like Jane Austin. How wall flowery is that?