Today I am reflective. I want to make sense of my sadness when by all accounts, I should be happy. I am living in a great community, meeting new people. I live in a spacious condo on the water, decorated with my new sense of experimental style. I have an opportunity to decide what I would like to do for a career, yet there is no hurry. I can enjoy this time of space and suspension. Yet, I don’t. I miss the people who should be filling up the space here with me. I do not know how to make the ache go away.
Suddenly, it hit me. I don’t think that I ever really believed that a man would love me completely. So if I have this deep mistrust of being loved, it is no wonder that all my relationships end the same way - over. I think I have always worried that once someone really gets to know me, they will not like me, and guess what, that has been so true. In both of my marriages, and in my last great fling, again, it was true.
I am not sure that I even want to spend the time of seeing where this might be true in my first marriage. It was so long ago, and I don’t feel any pain there. I was so young, the circumstances so very typical for being that young and for my time. I thought I was marrying someone different from what I knew. He was not. His family was what I thought I wanted, and I naively believed that he was like his family and my life would be like that. Of course, I did have his family, I just did not have him. I also have the gift of the child we created.
My second marriage, I got a little smarter in knowing what I wanted in a man. I got what I wanted to the extent I knew what that was. I also did not heed the warning signs. I was so grateful to be with someone who I ordained to be a god next to me, that I lost sight of me completely, for a while, anyway. I always thought he was better than me, and by the time I realized that neither of us was better, we were both different, I also tired of the constant struggle of power. Although I lost sight of myself several times in that marriage, I also found myself, too. Of course, there was so much good, too. I prefer to remember why I loved him, why I stayed so long. But then, I have to remind myself there was a reason it ended. So, I look at it only to raise myself from self-doubt, blame and guilt.
I also want to make sense so I can do it right finally. I wonder if that is even possible. LIndy tells me it is. I want to believe her. Yet, based on the men I have been meeting lately, I can’t help but wonder how. The way I have been acting lately, I am sure it is not. I need to gather my courage and strength and learn how to enjoy being alone. I used to think I was special and had so much to offer, and lately I cannot help wondering if this is still true.
I am terrified of making another mistake with a man. I certainly know what I do not want in a relationship. I have lots of practice there. In the last year, I have had even more exposure to what I do not even want in a dating relationship, never mind a permanent one. Maybe it is time, to look at things differently. After all, one can always hope.
Sadie Jackson, a fictional heroine, is back on the dating scene for the third time. After two trial marriages, she is bound and determined to get it right.She can be nauseatingly optimistic and enjoys recounting her dating experiences with humor and compassion.Follow her dating escapades in this work of fiction that will be updated on a regular basis.
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