(The following was originally written in August 2024, just before a new person entered my life. Reading it now, just over a year later, I am struck by how soon the thing I was seeking here would be realized. It’s a reminder that what you think may become.)
Returning from this year’s trip to Spain, followed by six days in Scotland and Ireland, it’s taken me a minute to process the many sites seen and experiences over the past several weeks. Fortunately, I always have my photos to transport me back. The sites, smells, feelings are all there in each shot and video. It’s taken me at least a week while visiting friends in Iowa to go through them all, organize, and create social media content…..which I do for myself more than anything. Finally, through this process, I get to reflect on the sheer scope of another epic adventure. I get to savor it….moving as slow as I want through the memories.
Not everyone does this. It’s likely that most want to savor as they go, but travel doesn’t always allow this. When the “Hop-on/Hop-off” bus leaves you stranded in Segovia, Spain and you have to race two miles up a hill in the hopes of catching a taxi to the train station, there’s no savoring. There’s just the rush and maybe a bit of panic accompanying the possibility that you might not make it in time. Yes, I want to remember that moment too. It’s good one. Because, we did make it and we learned something. The site-seeing bus in Segovia is unreliable.
I say “we” and realize that some readers may wonder…..who is this “we?” Well, the past two years, a platonic male friend and I have taken “birthday trips” at the end of July. Last year, we traveled through eight countries in a whirlwind 10-day adventure. This year, we kept our plans to visiting just one country. However, not wanting either trip to end when he’s flown home each time, I’ve flown to Scotland afterwards. Last year, my little trip extension was a solo endeavor. This year, I met two female friends in Edinburgh and squeezed in a flight to Ireland. It was great fun, but (needless to say) my travels also didn’t allow a lot of time to contemplate life, existence, relationships, or anything else. These, too, were put on the back burner until my return. More specifically, until today. This morning, in fact, I woke up to all sorts of thoughts swirling in my head that I hope to share if I can get them on the page…..
One of the more intrusive thoughts, per usual, is my love life….or lack, thereof. The day after I returned from my trip and the day before I was to drive to Iowa, I saw two dopplegangers of the person I fell in love with a few years ago. I also had a dream with him in it that first night back. I simply cannot express how absolutely infuriating it all is to me at this point. Over the past few years as these issues have come up, I have fought them, denied them, and finally accepted them…..only to find myself battling them again.
No, not battling. There’s no battle this time around. I simply and resolutely will kick these issues off a cliff each time they arise. Imagine that scene in the movie “300” where King Leonidas kicks the Persian messenger into a bottomless pit and screams, “This is Sparta!” This is me with the dopplegangers. I don’t want your message.
What I want is to open myself again to the possibility of someone. What I want is to be held. No hauntings involving someone whose life I don’t want to be trapped in. In fact, I completely recognize the probability that the woman in this person’s life needs him more than me and that her life is likely better and more full with him in it. I mean, what would her life be like without him?
And what would my life be like WITH him? Would it be better, decorating a house in midwestern suburbia, one trip a year, etc.? There are other undesirable aspects of this person, as well, that I care not mention…..but of which I have to remind myself. There is a great difference between accepting and loving someone as a person and tolerating certain behaviors within a relationship.
Another person I dated about 14 years ago brought up similar thoughts a couple of months ago when he sent me a friend request on a social media site. I deleted him over a year ago for a couple of reasons……the biggest being that while he is back with his ex that he dated before me, he kept “hearting” all of my profile pictures (even after two years into their relationship.) Early on in their relationship, he even tried to message me when he thought I didn’t know that they were back together (I believe it was December 2020.) Strange behavior since he had also commented “beautiful” on several of my photos leading up to getting back together with her. Overall, I just found it a dishonor to both her and me. Not only do I not intend to be an option to this person whose life no longer appeals to me, but I really feel for his girlfriend who really does suit his stationary life with four dogs and (now) horses. I doubt she would like him “hearting” all of my photos. Plus, what other ambitions does she have other than a life with him? He needs to keep her and be happy and write me off. I never accepted his request and he removed it, so I’m guessing he got the hint.
But all of this is really beside the point, other than to say that I’m in a different place these days….a much different place. It’s not only that I am honoring myself more and tolerating less from others, but I now see the majority of those in the dating pool as either frightened and confused people looking only for something to grab onto or sharks looking to prey on them. Either way, they’re unaware of the harm they do to others in the selfish effort to stay afloat emotionally. A shark will take a bite, but is never happy…..and bites again and again in an endless cycle of pain and trauma. The others cling to each other until they all drown….or let go only to cling to someone or something else.
I’m not going to say that I’ve never been lost at sea, because I have. It’s just that I’m not lost now. Perhaps it’s because I’ve learned to rise and fall with each wave…..ebb and flow with the tide. However one wants to look at it, I’m not afraid. I’m not confused. I will not cause harm. I will not cling.
And the dopplegangers? I see them and then they fade away….like the dreams….mirages that want to tease me with grief, loss, and longing. But I know better. The sea is so much more immense and awe-inspiring. There’s just something about being alone in its expanse. Something that flows in a person as much as a person flows in it. Something inseparable from one’s own depths that no mortal coupling can ever rival. Something conscious that seeks only the conscious in others.
And this is what I speak of when I say that I want to be held again. Yes, I am (at least, in part) a physical body living in a physical world and having physical needs. However, this does not mean that I want to enter that shipwreck of a dating pool again. It only means that I am ready to honor myself in a new way….by opening myself up to something more conscious and aware, if it presents itself.
If…..in its expanse….the sea brings me to it.
Jeanie Unbottled 