Why do we search for reasons to stay with a partner who doesn't love us quite enough? How is that acceptable on any level? Why is watching creamer swirl into my coffee so mesmerizing? Why have my girlfriends (the ones I consider most like myself mind you) started dating women? Does this happen at 30 when you haven't found someone to make a life with? Should I open up my possibilities? Three of my friends who have say that relationships with women are not sustainable, the dynamic is off,the roles are confusing.The other two haven't reported back yet.
I'm starting to change perspective I think, in a lot of ways but especially regarding "family crack" moments. First I'll try and explain "family crack". Either you've experienced this or you can imagine it, I saw a family crack moment used in a Publix commercial recently where the little boy wakes up with a football helmet on, the idea was that football games were "their time" so mom didn't want to be stuck in the kitchen cooking. The last scene is the family of three cheering on the game together. The feeling mom (and dad I can only assume) were feeling at that moment of togetherness, family, that feeling you felt when you were a child and try to recreate in your adult life with the partner you choose.....that feeling is as addictive, it is a drug. Now a drug addiction might be OK if it's socially acceptable (like caffeine) and readily available. A drug addiction is not OK (for a host of reasons, but just go with me here) it's not OK in your perspective when you don't have a supply and if you can't afford it. If you don't have a family unit that gives you the feeling of family you will likely search for it (I *think* I should get that feeling of family when it's just Audrey and I, but I don't-I'm still processing how that realization makes me feel)
OK I got a little off course....back on track. I will use fictional characters to illustrate.
Angie is a 30 year old mother of one, she's been divorced from her child's father for 3 years and has had a steady boyfriend for 10 months now that she really really really likes. One weekend morning instead of her boyfriend hightailing it out of Angie's bed and home before her child awakes he stays, they make pancakes, they all sit down to eat together. Family crack streams through Angie's veins.
My original stance was to avoid F.C. at any cost and I often failed miserably. My favorite failure was when Michael was sitting on Aud's floor, I sat in Michael's lap and Audrey fresh from the bath sat in mine. Michael read her a story about tadpoles. We put her to bed together. I can still recall the feeling it gave me as clear as my first taste of pure molly.
This created a craving and it also created a false sense of family. We were not a family. Michael was not nor did he aim to be her father. In that moment I was fooled and I saw a connection where there wasn't one because that is what I wanted to see. With that perspective I regretted those moments.
I don't enjoy regrets, I don't enjoy making mistakes, but I accept them as a necessary part to my personal learning process(much to the chagrin of my friends and family).
Like this one song says second best to playing and winning is playing and losing. I'm here for the experience, I'm here for the ride. I have a deep understanding that life is a series of moments that we must be present for, family crack moments included. We get so wrapped up in how they will affect us later that we forget to experience our lives. There is a balance, a tight rope walk between living now and living for tomorrow.
Today, when I think back on that tadpole book moment I revel in the feeling it recalls. No regrets and no expectations. (Kelly is the master on the subject of expectations, she's helping me learn) It doesn't make me sad, nostalgic or otherwise melancholic. It makes me feel blessed to have experienced it and then I let the memory go, I see it float on down the road. Life is teaching me to let go.
What I learned from all this is that part of the experience of living mindfully is seeing what is truly there. I can have a moment where whomever I'm dating does a fatherly thing, we are all walking through the grocery store, he helps her tie her shoe,he takes a turn carrying her through the park, etc. I can see these moments as times where a dear friend shows kindness to me and her, no expectations is the key.
Those times are no different than when my best friend's husband teaches Audrey how to kick a soccer ball or when one of my girlfriends helps her practice using her arms to swim.
I would still warn against F.C. saturation b/c it's very hard not to have expectations and very hard not to see what you want to see. There is also the ways in which it will affect Audrey(that's an entirely different blog...please don't think she's not a consideration in all of my activities with boyfriends)
It's funny how things will just come to you.This all came to my while laying on the couch watching a movie last night.
It's reassuring to realize that I'm still learning. I'm growing, I'm changing. I am not a stagnant mosquito infested pond. I might not be the grand rapids either, but perhaps somewhere in between, something like a small cool spring trickling from a pinhole in a rock.
