Recently I have been doing a lot of relationship work...with myself. I am finding myself in repeated conversations about loneliness, relationships and what the fuck any of us are even trying to do here.
I think motivation matters most...if you are trying to be with somebody then the somebody is super important. If you are just trying to avoid being alone...well, pretty much anybody will do.
I think what screws most people up, well, wait, maybe I should just speak for myself, what used to screw me up, was that it is really easy to dress up anybody to look like somebody. The mind is this amazing place where one can go to add or delete things about a person, situation or even yourself. Anything that falls outside your story, can be rewritten to be more to your liking. It is amazing how creative we can be...
So I can say that I spent the first half of my life, dressing up anybody to look like somebody. Guess what? It doesn’t work. Ultimately the person’s anybodyness comes shining through and ruins the whole deal. Disappointing, yes. Inevitable, totally.
So we all know how to find anybody...that is easy. Just walk outside or get online or show up in your life. Anybodys abound. They are there for easy sex, flirtation and more. Anybody can be anything you like because they are not really real...what I mean to say, is that despite the fact that they are a real person, they are not really important in your story. It is like you are a casting agent and it is more important to have an actual body there than it is to have someone read for the part that actually has talent.
Now finding somebody is not so easy. Somebody has all these other qualities that are not so changeable and demand better discernment on your part. Somebody will not allow you to just write them into your story because they are SOMEBODY after all and will not allow you to just manipulate them into being what you want.
The place where you meet somebody is very different than where you meet anybody...
I hear from many people who tell me, when they are done allowing anybody to show up, how much they come to doubt the existence of somebody. I can relate. For me, I think that my time alone without anybody has made me realize just how precious it is to find somebody, so much so that anybody will no longer do...the gap that is created between the two can sometimes be a lonely place. However, I have also found that this gap is an amazing place in getting to know yourself. How one can find that you, yourself are not just anybody in someone else’s life, but you are somebody in your own right and that requires a complete rewrite to the story you have been telling yourself.
The thing, for me, about becoming your own somebody is that it tends to make finding another somebody seem nearly impossible and finding anybody else becomes wholly irrelevant. It is some tricky business this whole somebody versus anybody thing. One that remains unsettled in my own life. I can no longer settle or even consider anybody...that ship sailed and is long gone. But finding somebody seems as daunting as tracking down a ship at sea from dry land. How does one even go about that?
I had a thought yesterday that kind of messed me up...I was in a place that I don’t visit very often anymore...the place where I am recounting to myself all of my fine attributes in some sort of universal discussion of my worth, some sort of inane persuasive argument with the powers that be to win them over to my side that I am a worthy and worthwhile person that deserves a somebody in her life. I was hiking and the whole of my hike was this ongoing dialogue with the universe about when might it be my turn and blah, blah, blah...I finally stopped my silent oral argument and this is what I heard...
MEN ARE NOT A REWARD FOR YOUR GOODNESS.
FUCK!
Really?
Why the hell not?
Well, because they are people and people are not beings that are rewards for other beings. They are beings in their own right. They deserve all the things that you deserve. They are not a prize to be sought after, collected, prized and shelved. They deserve to be loved for who and what they are, always allowing some space between so that they can always and forever be who they are.
So I guess I have some more work to do...finding somebody is not a quest after all, somebody is not the holy grail at the end of it all. Finding somebody apparently is something that I do not yet understand and am not ready for...which would be really bad news but for the fact that I can see the growth in my refusal to accept just anybody anymore.
So like so much of my life these days, I find myself in the middle of where I used to be and where I would like to be. And while the middle feels like a compromise that I would prefer not to make, I am resting easier in this middle ground. Trusting that I am exactly where I am supposed to be...being the somebody I already am, while becoming the somebody I am meant to be. Truth be told, I have realized that it isn’t about somebody or anybody afterall, it is about becoming the best me I can and then just allowing the to be enough. I am the reward of my own quest, now I just have to adjust my thinking to see that I am the somebody in my life's story that is worth all the growth and change. I am the somebody and that is enough for anybody.
