Juxtapositioning

“Living with you,” he said, “has been extraordinary. Extraordinary.” His heart filled his eyes for a moment, then became playful. “That’s a highlight for you, me saying that.”

Why yes. Yes it was a highlight, and in our morning coffee ritual the next day, feet on lap, I told him so.

Extraordinary.

1. Beyond what is ordinary or usual.
2. Highly exceptional; remarkable.

We have both lived with others. My experiences then were those of survival, maintaining, staying safe from being hurt, trying to assert control where I felt none. I wanted love but didn’t know how to ask for it. Or where to look. Or I stopped believing it was possible. I had love but it was fleeting. Or conditional. Or just muted, colorless, lifeless.

I think back now and remember exactly how I dreamed extraordinary into being. Did I do that? I hope I did. I told the universe that it was time my soulmate showed up. And then there he was, standing on a borrowed Seattle porch, and my heart said YES. This is what I said to the universe: Read the rest of this entry »

I have been unfair. Specifically, unfair in my last post. Unfair to what is really in front of me. I wrote from the place I am in — which to me in this moment seems vast and unconquerable — but not from the place I have been.

I have at my bedside a book containing now more than 200 elements of awesome, reasons for loving and living, and I forgot to look at it. Or think of it. No, in my inner emptiness I neglected to feel into the fullness of the Summer of Love, of my soulmate-beloved, and instead I saw the half-empty glass walls I had erected around me.

I lack integrity. It is a thing I am working on, coming smack up in my face time and again, but dammit, I am incomplete. I lack and the lackness is of my strength, or in plainer words, strength of character and faith is what I lack.

Integrity. Holding together. Structural goodness. Also, integration. I fly into pieces, chaotic, scattered, at the least provocation. My beloved hurts and retreats and I treat this as hurt to me, retreating farther. How dare I! Where did I go? And why? Read the rest of this entry »

He is cringing already at the title, I just know it, but it is far too late — the word has been said, not once but many times and not just in jest but in the deeper truth that lies beneath the fear. Soulmate.

Not only have I never used this term with anyone in my long and not-so-illustrious relationship history, but I use it now with such certainty, such abandon, such restfulness that I can safely breathe past the wild pounding of my heart that tells me I am walking in uncharted territory. Soulmate.

Not only am I his soulmate but he is mine.

(Does that go without saying? Are there such things as unrequited soulmates? Is there anything more sad than that?) Read the rest of this entry »

Once there was a girl who learned not to trust. She was hurt by things — big scary dogs, loud people, being left in strange places that didn’t smell like home, people who tricked and lied — and learned to go deep inside. She thought that deep within, she could stay safe. The girl built walls and thought they would protect her, thick tall strong walls.

What she built instead was an entire world that wasn’t safe. An uncertain world lay beyond her walls. Staying small and deeply hidden, she forgot about her magical powers caught outside the walls she built. The girl felt so alone. She believed she would always be that alone, always need to stay small and deeply hidden.

The girl was wrong. One day she woke up and remembered about her magical powers, but they lay out of reach beyond her walls. In order to reach her magic, the girl had to do the unthinkable. The walls she had thought were protecting her had to come down. She had to let the world in. Read the rest of this entry »