Believing in love...for the first time

I decided that a relationship I'd been in for almost a year wasn't working for me and we stopped seeing each other. It's been a few months now and I am sometimes troubled by concerns about the choices I made:  what I said, what I did.... Was I clear? gentle? loving? Did I act in alignment with my values for kindness, direct communication, and honesty? I've been beating myself up a little, thinking that maybe I didn't handle this breakup very well. I suppose that many of you have had experiences of this kind...yes? (I kind of hope so, just so I won't be alone.)

Well, yesterday, soaring tens of thousands of feet above the earth on my way home from a business trip, I suddenly had a new perspective. I literally got the "30,000 foot view" organizational planners are always talking about...but on my personal life. The epiphany struck me with such force, I'd have fallen out of any chair into which I wasn't wedged like a sardine in a can (thank you, Delta, for saving me from that fate).

Here's what I suddenly realized:  that was the first time in my life I've intentionally and mindfully ended a romantic relationship. I think it's the first time I was fully an adult during and through the end of a romance.

Even now, as I write those words, I am stunned by this reality. I am 60 and 1/2 years old and this is the first time in my life I've said no to a romantic relationship from a place of grounded self-awareness of my needs, and a clear-eyed observation of my potential partner's ability to meet those needs. This is the first time I left because I felt I wanted something else and deserved to have it. So what if I didn't do it perfectly! (No offense/insult intended to the other party.) But, really, if I flubbed the details a bit this first time, I think I can stop feeling bad about that. I should be throwing myself a party, celebrating with loved ones this amazing victory of personal growth!

Of course, I've experienced others breaking up with me, enough times to know what that can be like. And, certainly, I've initiated the ends of relationships before. It was me who filed for divorce from my husband of 3 years when I was in my early 20s; it was me who broke it off with a short-duration lover who used my apartment for a tryst with someone else while I was out of town for a few days. But those break-ups were emotional knee-jerks, angry and grief-stricken reactions to betrayal. My partners hurt me and I lashed out from the cringing pain of a wounded victim; the hurt child I used to be, who walked around in an adult suit.

This is the first time I simply said, "This is not enough for me. I want more and I'm going to go get it."

The #1 lesson of my epiphany is this:  Up to this point, I have been way too accommodating, adaptable, flexible...whatever you want to call it. I have spent a lot of time and energy adapting my behavior and lifestyle to those of my sweethearts, learning about what occupied their minds and hearts and pretending that I didn't notice or care whether they learned about what occupied mine. Have you ever done that?

I have not said no often enough to what doesn't work for me. Rather than just
laugh it off or ignore it, I have not often enough genuinely and clearly stated my limits; said "don't do that to me." The absence of a Childhood Treasure of Independence in my treasure chest is again revealed.

I have too often made excuses for my sweeties when their wounded children seemed to be driving the busses of their lives. Have you done this? I have told myself that they have good reason to behave in ways that seem to minimize me or my place in their lives. I have forgiven slights and small wounds, waiting for the moment when my patience and forgiveness would be rewarded by better treatment. Have you?

The bottom line is this:  I have not required that I be loved -- well, truly, and abundantly. I have not required my partners to live inside their own power and love me as I live inside mine. I have not required mutuality of strength, responsibility, communication, and consideration between us. I have settled for what crumbs of support and what thin threads of connection I could get. Have you?

Worse to accept than lesson #1 was lesson #2:  I have believed that this "settling" was all I could expect of romantic relationships. No...it's more than that. I have been unable to conceive of someone loving me, just as I am, with a kind of reckless, abundant, sweetly intense curiosity. That's sad, isn't it? I have not been able to believe in the possibility of someone who strives to really see me, in all my complexity, from the security of grounded self-awareness. I think I have not felt I deserved someone who sees me for who I am, rather than as a Narcissus-like self-reflection or an after-image echo of former lovers. I have not believed in someone who finds me glorious, amazing, and delightful; who can't wait to find out more about what I think and how I feel and what I desire in this life...and who expects and fearlessly embraces the same delightful exploration from me.

In short, I have not expected for myself the kind of love I can offer. Am I perfect? Not at all. But I have now grown to the point where I can give what I want to receive.

Which takes me back to lesson #1. In the absence of conceiving and envisioning a life with someone who, not only is not threatened by all that I am, but celebrates me, I have too often been a chameleon, taking on the landscape around me, letting big chunks of who I am fade into the background, dropping any behavior that meets with disapproval. I have listened and watched for the cues to tell me how to be whomever my love wants me to be...and I have been that, as best I can.

I think there has been a kind of resigned desperation at the root of this dynamic. I don't expect to be truly loved, just as I am, so I have believed I must go after and hang onto whatever substitute for that I can find.

Well.... No more.

Now I know the truth. Love that is open and generous, fearlessly abundant, inquisitive, and enthusiastically shared is mine. The sweetheart I seek is seeking me...and we are so close to meeting each other! And if we should never meet, I will be fine. I am forever standing in the heart of the Divine and all is well, with or without a love interest in my life. No need to bend my needs and desires around whatever semblance of love is offered to me. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, speaking to his Jenny, "I am a smart woman...and I know what love is."

I can now conceive of the love I want, having realized I AM that love. I can look to myself as the exemplar, for I have been for someone else the kind of generous, kind, attentive sweetheart I want someone to be for me. And through being that kind of sweetie for someone scared, unreceptive, and stingy in loving me back, I have learned that one doesn't have to be perfect--nor even close to it--to "earn the right" to that kind of love.

I can now believe in romantic love--really believe in it, without reservation or fear--for the first time in my life. Do you believe?