Where does your love map lead?

According to modern day psychology, a person’s “mental love map” is developed in early adolescence. This scares the hell out of me. It means my mind decided when I was a young child what love was all about, growing up with a single mother and an absent-except-for-every-other-weekend father. My young brain was trying to process why my mother had a new boyfriend every month and why my father was barely dating at all. As if it isn’t hard enough asking yourself why your parents got divorced and receiving well rehearsed bullshit answers from them. Over the course of growing up, I have asked myself how their divorce and my upbringing in such environment has affected me. I have come up with hundreds of different answers, but there is one memory that stands out and defines my own love map.

I don’t remember how old I was, but I would guess I was around 5 or 6 years old. My mother and I were in her car, driving home after she had yet another break-up with one of her latest boyfriends. I don’t remember if we spoke on the ride home or what kind of music was playing on the radio. I just remember the tears that slid down my mother’s cheeks in a constant flow. Her eyes red and her cheeks streaked with black from her mascara. I cannot recall ever seeing my mother cry before that day. In my memory, this was the first time I saw her shed tears over anything. The woman who wiped away my tears and soothed me when I was upset was crying because of a man.

Fast forward to me at 15 years old having a huge fight with the first boy I ever loved because I never cried in front of him. He screamed that I didn’t care. I was heartless. Why couldn’t I cry in front of him? He demanded to know. I told myself back then that it was because I believed crying to be a weakness. If someone made you cry, then they knew they could hurt you. They knew how to hurt you. Who would ever willingly give another person that power over them? Not me, not then anyway. Was there something buried in my subconscious that didn’t allow me to cry in front of people, especially in front of men I love?

Through the rest of high school and college, any tears I cried over relationships with males were shed in private. I was the listening ear and shoulder for many of my girlfriends, but never was I the one at the head of the pity party. My misery was never a fan of company. I’d get in my car, turn on the saddest music possible, and drive until I was all cried out. The older I got, I found I would only allow myself to let go and cry after many alcoholic beverages. The upside I suppose is that I am one tough cookie and a hard one to break down. The downside is that sometimes it is that weakness that can tighten the bond between two people. A lack of emotion gives off the impression of a cold heart. I don’t think of my heart as cold, but it is certainly well guarded at this point.

With age and experience comes understanding because I do realize now that crying is not a weakness. My pride still doesn’t allow me to shed tears freely, but then again I haven’t had any males in my life recently that deserved to see those tears either. Most females hope for a man that never makes her cry, yet for me a man I can cry in front of will be worth keeping around. It means that I’ve let him in, which isn’t something I do on a whim for just any old guy. This is coming from a hopeless romantic who seems to run away from love or pick the wrong men (or the geographically challenged.) I guess what I’m really hoping to find is someone I can open up and show emotion to. I want a man who isn’t afraid to feel and most importantly isn’t afraid to make me stay when I try to run (‘cause Lord knows I know how to do that!)

As for my love map, there are a lot of routes I haven’t been down yet. The unknown paths can seem scary, but I remember reading somewhere that happy endings aren’t meant for cowards. I think it’s time to follow my love map to where my heart desires and forget where it’s been. I’m all about leaving the past behind these days and even more about seeking all those things I’ve been afraid of for far too long. Here's to taking the scenic route this time.

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

- Orson Welles

The Age Old Question

"Do you believe in soul mates?"

It's that cliche question that you see in movies, read in books, and ask in deep conversations over cocktails. The general consensus is that you get one soul mate and that person is the one. Your soul mate is the one person in the entire universe that fate has chosen for you to be with forever. Or, at least until one of you dies. I imagine if you are married or otherwise involved in a serious relationship, you probably believe in this one soul mate business. That is, you believe it until you break up or get divorced. Then, we will hear you claim, "Oh, that person must not have been my soul mate since it's over." This will lead you to go back out into the wonderful world of dating and be in search of yet again, the one.

It isn't our fault that we have this crazy idea of one soul mate. The movies and romance novels have filled our heads with this nonsense. Disney did most of the damage when we were too young to realize how they were manipulating our view of love. It is rare to find a movie that ends with the boy and girl not living happily ever after. However, I finally found one! The movie is called "Prime," starring Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep. The gist of the movie is not important at this point; however what Streep's character says to her son (who had been dating Thurman's character) is pretty much the point I'm getting at:

"Sometimes you love and you learn...and you move on. And that's okay."

We get so caught up in believing in one soul mate when we need to realize that every relationship is not meant to last forever. People enter our lives for different reasons and particularly when we need something that they can provide. Sometimes we can have brief relationships that leave us wondering, "What in the heck was that for? I wasted my time!" No, you learned something. You just don't know it yet. People come and go....to teach us something new about ourselves, to remind us of who we are, to heal a heart we thought would never mend, or most often just to help us find our smile again. The "smile finders" are my favorite, by the way! I can't even count the times I've encountered memorable people who did nothing more than make me smile again when it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. It's bittersweet that these people can't stick around, but we wouldn't see their significance if they did. I believe fate sends us more than one soul mate. It's ridiculous to believe we are only allowed one person our entire lives that will make us feel complete and whole and be everything we ever dreamed.

You can't define a soul mate based on a romantic comedy or an epic love story. You have to decide what you think a soul mate is. Soul mate is defined on Dictionary.com as, "a person with whom one has a strong affinity." Aside from that sounding absolutely boring, I think I've had a strong affinity for more than one person in my lifetime. I realize that by saying we have more than one soul mate that tends to take the significance out of a "significant other." Well, I think the term significant other sounds pretty boring too. I want a lover, a friend, a protector, a gentleman, a listener, a storyteller, a partner in crime, a companion...I could go for days on all the things I want in "the one"...I figure this soul mate business is nothing to settle for, so I might as well get everything I want.

Every relationship we have teaches us something, whether one big thing or a lot of little things. It is the lessons we learn from these romantic partners that shape our future relationships. It is through experience that we learn to define what love and a soul mate are. We don't want our hearts to be broken, yet how else did we expect to find out what we don't want from a romantic partner? It's my belief that we do this song and dance of love and heartbreak to mold ourselves into the perfect partner for the soul mate that we are meant to be with forever. How else do you expect to be perfect for your mate unless you have shed all your imperfections in your past?

Originally written 12/15/07
~LDW~

Only the Lonely

It has taken the better part of my young adult life to learn the difference between being alone and being lonely. There are still times when the two notions overlap each other and confuse the hell out of me. By definition, lonely means to be sad from being alone; yet alone is defined as being exclusive of anyone else. As you'll notice, there is no mention of lonely when defining alone. Often times, I think we settle for less when we're lonely. We just want that comfort that another warm body can provide and we forget to remember what we deserve. We confuse comfort with feeling, not realizing that our feelings for someone are hollow if they are only filling a space because of our loneliness.

But what is comfort without a little passion? A little romance? Comfort alone (no pun intended) can only fool your heart for so long. Your relationship can't move forward without more substance. After awhile, you find yourself unhappy with that kind of situation because in actuality it is better to be alone than be with someone you don't really like. There are other ways to fill voids without possibly hurting the other party involved who may actually have feelings for you. Even if the other person is also using you to fill the void, that is still just a waste of time when both of you could be with other people you have chemistry with.

We are so afraid of being alone that we will waste time in a relationship that doesn't matter to us waiting for something to spark. Why are we waiting for a spark? Isn't that supposed to be there right away? And if it isn't, why get involved in the first place? There are tons of prospects out there, so find the one that gives you butterflies. Stop making excuses for the ones who don't make your tummy drop when their name pops up on your cell phone ID. Go home alone instead of with the boy who sleeps by your side but doesn't even kiss you goodbye the next morning. Get a hobby, read a book, or do whatever it takes to avoid spending one more minute with someone just because they are there.

As Nietzsche once said, “The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.” Instead take a page from Thoreau's book, “I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." The most important thing is to remember that there is no one more wonderful to be with than yourself. Finding happiness in yourself alone is what matters most and that is a companion that will never let you down.

Originally written 3/9/09
~LDW~