Number one is this: I love falling in love, I love being in love and I love staying in love. These are three different processes and require three different ways of being. Number two is this: your internal construct of yourself must be someone who can be a part of a couple. If you are a lone ranger, then you cannot be part of a couple, if you are a maniacal diva, you cannot be part of a couple. Plain and simple, you must be able to see yourself as part of a two.
Number one, falling in love: the first person you must fall in love with is yourself. You must know that you are beautiful and that you have the best traits that you believe you should have. Be aware of all about you that is lovely, profound, and clever. What you do have must be identified and applauded. Dig out all the information that you can dig out about you and then consciously appreciate it. By appreciating yourself, you become capable of giving yourself in your full glory to someone else. See this: I love falling, being and staying in love. Note that I say I love… these are all things that I want to do. You must consciously say I want to love, if you want to meet a man and keep a man. You must make a commitment to the process if it is something that you really want in your life.
Number two, your internal construct must be congruent with being in a couple. If you are fiercely independent, is there really room in your life for a man? If you are a diva; is there really room in your life for anyone else besides yourself? Do you feel good about yourself? Can you give your goodness to someone else? Are you available to caring for yourself enough to be loved? You can only have another if you are willing to be loved, and you can only be willing if you firmly believe that you are worth being loved. It’s not an easy row to hoe. I say love, which is the most rewarding experience there is, is also one of the most difficult. You must be a willing heart who believes in love. You must also believe in yourself. Can you? Do you?
He tells me again that “people do not understand, they think I am taking this too well.” I am thinking to myself that I do not see how anyone could mistake this man’s grief. How could anyone not see how heavily his grief lays upon all things? As this man walks, his grief precedes him. I am thinking that he apologizes for interrupting me, but he should apologize for bringing his grief with him. As he speaks to me, I feel his grief. My eyes tear up. Then I remember my own mother’s death, there are no specifics and no details, it is simply a matter of the grief. He speaks to me some more and his words are not important. Again I feel my eyes burning; it hurts to be near him. I wish for him to go away. I know that there are things that I may do to help him, but first he must go away. I will help him when my intellect returns to replace my grief – my grief that is his grief.
She: “What? Really? I thought we were going to do those things together.”
He: “Well you can come, I need to get started back and I didn’t know what you would want.”
She: “I want to come; I thought we were doing these things together.”
He: “Please come, you can come.”
The next morning:
He: “So, we are going to the gym tonight, be ready after work.”
She: “Why are you trying to boss me? I’m not going to the gym tonight.”
All rituals that demark beginnings indicate endings and all rituals that demark endings indicate beginnings. A beginning is often known as a rite of passage; while endings may simply be rituals. All such changes involve making relationships different. A daughter becomes a wife, and never again will her relationship with her parents be the same: it has ended in a way that makes all things different. As a wife, she cannot prioritize her parents over her husband. So it is, her childhood vanishes in a wisp of a dream and so many small and large changes follow. This beginning, this relationship with her new husband, is concretized by the ritual of marriage. Because this ritual is well discussed – to the point of volumizing instruction manuals, expectations seem clear and the expected journey is well traveled.
Much about life that ends and begins does not have a ritual attached to it. Ideally, a ritual would ease the difficulty involved with accepting change, but in the absence of a ritual we must reach out to each other and discuss these changes so that we can accept them and pass through them.
In the case of marriage, the prescription for process behavior and the prescription for follow up behavior is clearly promulgated by our society. Other changes, universal as they are, have no such articulated prescriptions for process or follow up behavior. Such is the case with menopause.
With 89 million baby boomers in this country, it is hard to believe that we do not talk so much about this life changing process. There is much to be resisted about menopause. Women must say farewell to the looks of their youth. This is not to say that such women are no longer attractive, this is not to say that such women are no longer “hot”. It is to say that the attractiveness changes in an irrevocable way. There is no ritual or rite of passage attached to this life changing event and perhaps there should be. The social prescription for after-menopause is not a positive one – perhaps resistance of the process stems from this fact.
Humans are beautiful no matter what their age is and women are particularly so. Many societies do not honor the aged. It is past time that we honored ourselves and our age. It is time that we honor this Rite of Passage and claim our maturity and our beauty proudly.
Maybe because I have passed the age of 50, maybe because I cherish my personal relationships more than anything else – or maybe – I’ve grown up, I don’t know. Here is the thing, I do not want to stomp around angry for days anymore. This whole study in the art of being here now requires me to examine every moment in time for how I feel at this moment. Yes, we argued yesterday, but at this moment I just want to be cuddled and kissed. Forget about being righteous, forget about stomping around and pouting. It is not worth losing out on cuddles and kisses!
The dichotomy is this: I am much less likely to excuse and ignore misconceptions and misunderstandings. I speak up! I won’t be treated badly, nor will I compromise myself. In this way however, I am more stubborn, because I don’t give up on what I need. I keep expressing what I need. So clearly, I will communicate often, just don’t expect fits, stomping around or power plays. Nor am I willing to “leave things be.” I can be as diplomatic as the next person, not when it moves past diplomacy to a compromise of me, I have to say so.
Living right now is a huge challenge. I like it because I have so much great freedom. There is no such thing as avoidance, it all must be dealt with. So – be here now, and get some cuddles – if you’re lucky.