Member-only story
STAY OPEN
When you constantly want something, and you’re constantly looking for it, or even worse, trying to make it happen, you are unlikely to be successful. Always striving for something puts you in a constant state of lack. When you’re always looking at what you don’t have, you risk not seeing a gift when it presents.
Don’t do what I did for so much of my life and attempt to manufacture a long-term romantic relationship. My need to hold onto my fairy tale romance notions had devastating consequences. I didn’t know how to let a relationship flow, how to let it play out as it was intended.
That’s not to say I fucked everything up. I didn’t. We all make choices based on the information we have at any moment in time. I didn’t see it, I didn’t know. It’s only in the last few years I’ve figured a lot of this out, and I’m 59 years old! I’m a different person now. I’m more whole. I’ve healed and grown and changed. I’m so so so much better. Plus, I like myself a hell of a lot more.
I resist the temptation to view those years of suffering as wasted time. No time is ever wasted. You always learn. Always. It takes as long as it takes, but once you’ve got hold of the truth, you can never unknow the truth.
I’ll tolerate a bit of bullshit at the outset of a relationship, but if it’s steady, I walk away. And I walk away pretty much right away. I didn’t used to walk away…