I have mentioned The Tribe many times. It is an interesting group of women who would not normally have mixed. We are diverse in our interests, backgrounds, personalities but we love each other...fiercely.
I have always had difficult relations with women...well, I guess that can also be said of my relations with men. Maybe I AM the issue. And that would be true. I have a hard time in relationships, wait that isn’t true. I am great at relationships...just not ones that require a deep level of intimacy. Relationships I am great at - intimacy is a whole other story.
I think my issues with female friendships goes back to grammar school where friendship seemed to be a moving target and I was just not built that way. If I was your friend on Monday, unless you did something really shitty to me, I was still your friend on Tuesday. I was not mercurial in my love of people and friends. I was loyal and loving...until I was wronged then I was a little bit of an asshole and became divisive and eventually I was just gone. I am a great leaver and so I would take my leave, without warning or discussion, and move the fuck on.
So it is somewhat of a miracle that I have this group of female friends. I marvel at it all the time. I used to feel like the nerdy sidekick, the less attractive younger sister that they allowed to tag along. But I do not feel that way anymore. I see my place in the group. I feel my import as much as I see theirs. I do not feel less than any of them anymore which is one of the first lessons they taught me.
As a group we all came together when we were single, except for Cuppie who is single for like 5 minutes once every two decades. And we have now weathered the last five years with all of us falling in and out of love. It has been a roller coaster for sure. But it has been amazing to watch the love stories unfold. First, I watched each of them fall in love with themselves. They found a love of self that had been missing all their lives. They dug deep and worked on their shit. They dove into the dark, deep places in the pool and swam around to find that it was just dark water, nothing really all that threatening there at all. Then I watched them one by one fall in love with men. Worthy men. Kind men. Adoring men. They found their matches. They found their other half. I do not mean to say that they found perfection, just the person that was perfect to walk through life with, to live the ups and downs alongside.
One by one they met, fell in love, moved in with and/or married. There were only two of us that were still single. Me and MFJ. Now I see her, having spent the last year falling in love with her, finding her Mr. Right. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I can’t say what an honor it has been to watch these six other love stories unfold. It has been amazing. A gift.
I am the only one left standing single now. And I am so grateful for that. I am not done falling in love with myself I guess. I am not done working on me. I can see that. Sometimes it feels like there is no Mr. Right for me. And I am really ok with that. I do not pine away for him like I used to. I am not desperately waiting for Lane to return to his senses and come back. I have survived that particular love story and outgrown it. But I am in a weird place where I am so content with my life and how I am living it that I almost fear falling in love again. It is almost a dread.
Somehow in all the internal work, I have used self actualization as a shield to love. I have come to think of myself as solitary and come to kind of prize that feeling. I wake alone and go to bed alone and I am really very content with that. I have thought many times that perhaps I am not supposed to be in love’s inner circle, perhaps my lot is to stand outside and watch it happen for others....and write about it.
Right now, I am so happy forMFJ. I love hearing her recitation of their conversations. I love the look on her face when she talks about him. I love the stuff he is saying to her. I love how much she is ready for him and, so it would appear, him for her. It is amazing and wonderful and a privilege to watch ring side.
It is such a relief to not be worried about when it is my turn. When will I find love like that. I am really ok where I am. Which is weird because I have always been the victim of my own discontent. Right now I love my life the way it is. I feel settled and secure and alive. I feel like I am finally in a place where I am ok doing my own thing. I can really enjoy love from the outside view. I do not need to be in the fray. I can be a love spectator and enjoy it just as much as I would getting in the ring.
I have been a love prizer fighter my whole life. Getting knocked around and TKO’ed more times than I can count. But my last love affair, I went like 30 rounds and really got my ass kicked. For a long time, I was afraid of the ring. Afraid to enter love’s canvas battleground. But now I am willing to see that there are more roles in prize fighting than just the fighters. There are referees (which I kind of do in my day job), there are concessionaires hocking everything from popcorn to beer to redvines ( no thanks, I hate sales, I am a way better consumer), and there are announcers (ah, there we go - my new role). I want to be a love announcer, sitting ring side for all the battles and victories. I want to shout out and tell the world all about the view from love’s inner circle. The pain, the jabs, the upper cuts, the body blows. But I also want to tell about the amazing battle within each of the fighters who don’t give up no matter how many times that bell rings. Who keep returning to the ring to prove to be love’s ultimate victor and claim the title of heavy weight love champion. And I will keep announcing their victories and crushing defeats from my ringside chair...watching and waiting for love’s overspray. Summoning my courage to one day, climb back into the ring myself to claim my own heavy weight love title at last.
