I was just thinking the other day how disconcerting it is that 'crazy' runs in my family. I was in a really good place yesterday, and I was most of today as well, but sometimes I slip. This is why I write. And when I slip I mean that I start panicking about life, love, the future, whatever happens to be on my mind really. What I think I'm finding is that I have trouble having unwavering faith. No one has unwavering faith in anything, but if I could slide back down the hill less often it would really save me the skinned knees. Faith in what you ask? Faith that God and life (same thing really) have a perfect plan if I'd just let go.
So I try.
I let go and watch what happens. Then I find something that I think I want more than anything and I have to metaphorically sit on myself to stop myself from trying to 'arrange' it. I slip back into the idea that in order to have anything worth having, or to get anyone or anything I want, that I need to make it happen myself or it will never come to me. This also applies to things that seem too fantastic to actually come to pass. For instance, the idea that I will ever be my appropriate weight seems like a pipe dream, but it's not, it's really happening. This is because I'm now ready to face the reason I was afraid to lose it in the first place. People keep themselves overweight for a reason, and those reasons are rarely physical. I realized that I use my weight as an excuse for not opening myself up to love, I use it as a barrier. I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't have that excuse anymore. It's easy now, I just think, "He would never fall for me because I don't look right." And even if they do show interest I shut it down because I don't look right to me. You have to love yourself first before you can let anyone else do it, and I do love me, just not all of me. Now I feel panicky because I'm shedding the pounds and the thought never occurred to me that, "Shit, what if I look perfect in every way and I still end up not being good enough for them or for me." Don't get me wrong, I honestly think I'm fabulous most of the time, but historically no man (and by this I mean the ones I feel are truly worthwhile) has ever loved me, not even my Dad. Who, in my opinion, is kind of contractually obligated to do so. Whether I like it or not, this lack of positive male reinforcement has really jacked me up.
Here's where the faith comes in.
I can see signs and wonders, evidence that the life God has planned for me is really and truly so much better than anything I had ever consciously wanted for myself. The minute I let go of trying to steer my life I gained some of the most beautiful things. I always hated the stories of the Israelites who continually saw God part the seas and send food from the skies and still managed to lose faith. I always thought, 'You guys are such douche bags to have physically seen so many things and still lose the path.' I never thought I would understand their weakness, but I do now. I have these truths, these gifts, right here and now. I can see them with my eyes and feel them with my hands. These gifts are in the form of my forthcoming degree, my great apartment and pets, my nearly finished screenplay and the backlog of creative ideas that I can barely contain, and my amazing friends. All of these things evolved by me letting go of the lesser, even when it hurt so bad I thought it would kill me. Yet I doubt and I fear and I continue to not trust in the plan.
The last thing I haven't sorted out is this whole love thing. I am happy with my single life, I mean that. I like my solitude and my freedom to do as I wish. But I have always known I wanted a home and family and I am impatient. I know I am not ready, but I hate 'waiting and seeing.' I am a stubborn, petulant child, and when things aren't moving fast enough I struggle to not jump in, roll up my sleeves and make it go. "You can't hurry love" blah blah. I was never a fan of that song. I have grown up enough and looked long enough to know in my heart every detail of the person I want to fall in love with. I see the outline of his heart, the shape and texture of his soul, and these details are carved on my insides so, ideally, when I happen upon this person I will know him on sight. The problem is that up until now, because I am impatient, I have been playing an emotional 'Let's Make a Deal.' I find someone I like and I start looking at the requirements. 'Well, I don't really NEED that it just would have been nice....Oh, and that can go too, I'll make do.' Luckily the universe has worked overtime to continually save me from myself up until this point. One thing I never considered was how I would feel or what would happen if my heart finally did recognize the one it had been looking for. I'm not saying I've necessarily met that person, but I feel I'm at least dangerously close to the whole shebang. I only completely lost my heart once. And people are liars if they say you forget how bad something hurts. Maybe they can, but I can still remember with the same excruciating ache of my insides, how badly it hurts when you give your heart to someone with no anchor or lifeline attached and then have to figure out how to get it back in your chest when it doesn't work out. I am almost 100% certain that I don't have it in me to recover from something like that again. And so now I have a brand new fear to fret about late at night when sleep won't come and the monsters I keep at bay during daylight escape their cages and run amok in my brain.
I like how I try and figure out all the mysteries of my life at 2am. I'm also glad that when an ex calls with news of a new girl I no longer feel the need to vomit or have a panic attack. Sorry, that really has nothing to do with anything but sheer relief at feeling okay again. It could also be a reason for the NOT wanting to ever feel that way again. Am I making less and less sense?
Anyway, my point is that I cannot arrange for the love of my life. No matter how hard I may try to look or screen, how many checks and balances I've put in my heart to run potential people past...even if I find someone who comes through it all...there's nothing I can do to bring them to me. I can open the door to my heart and call to theirs by being my most authentically beautiful, complete self, but I cannot make them come even one step closer. I'm slowly realizing that the love that works, the love that lasts and weathers the storms, is the one that was created by two people moving towards each other at the exact same pace, meeting exactly in the middle of the distance between. These two people are perfectly whole, with no dead weight from the past dragging along, slowing them down. As much as I might want to, I can't run over and drag or carry them to where I want them and they can't pull me along either. And if I'm still incomplete and I try to skip growing all of my emotional limbs by scooting myself along the ground on my hands, I will delay the completion of the whole beautiful design that is being woven together at just the right pace, in just the right way to guarantee that one tug doesn't unravel the whole thing. This limb-growing business hurts, and it's disgustingly slow, but absolutely necessary. I just have to remind myself that in this waiting that I don't need to be afraid of losing, because the other person is still growing too. I must have CONFIDENCE that I deserve love, that I deserve the most amazing person, because I myself am the most amazing person. I tattooed 'I am not afraid' on myself for a reason. Maybe I should tattoo 'patience' on the other side.
P.S. (Interestingly enough the word 'confidence' comes from the French words 'con' and 'fiance' meaning 'with faith.') To have confidence in something means you have faith in it. Cool huh? Well it is to me, but I'm a linguistics geek.
