desire
i don’t know when it hit me, that my desires have changed. last week? the week before? yesterday? this morning? a year ago? all i know is that my desire is different.
when i was a child, i imagined myself as an adult: single, self-sufficient, a parent of one, interesting, cultured, living in a city, romantic liaisons with whomever i wanted (but no specific, committed, stable partner.
i am an adult now. and until this year, my vision of myself has been the same. but suddenly. things have changed. my desire has changed. i want things i have never wanted before. backyards, for example. maybe a car. more importantly, and more inexplicably: a partner. someone to grow with, to fight with, to learn to love in ever expansive ways with.
i am always a person who thinks through entirely before doing. always. i need to understand the minutiae, the intricacies.
being single has always made sense because i knew that i would be able to love myself and my child wholly. i was, have been, am still so terrified that i will never be able to give the people closest to me all the love they need. the idea of having a partner AND a child terrified me, terrifies me, because i cannot, will not, have one of them feel that i am not giving them all the love, care, and devotion that they need and deserve. and i cannot, will not, feel that i am not giving myself the love, care, and devotion that i need and deserve. but something has shifted, and i feel capable. not scarce. capable. of doing all that. maybe it’s possible, and i can be all of those things that i never had from a parent growing up. and maybe i will fail, but the trying hard will matter. and maybe a million maybes.
all i know is that i’m not trying to protect myself or my theoretical child or theoretical partner anymore; i’m just feeling the desire. and in that desire, there is space, and hope, and joy.
I will send you an e-mail soon about other things, when my head is a little more organized, but this post resonated with me, but in an “oh that is so interesting because I do this thought process in the same way but with completely different content.”
Mostly about this fear of not being able to give the people close to you the love they deserve. Because I have never been scared of that, I have known for a long time that I can make people feel very special, and I have always wanted to have someone there to pour that out on, and I know how easily I love very young people, how I just slip into loving them with very little questioning of that slip. I have not, however, until very recently had a glimmer of a possibility of a whisper of a hope that I might be able to lavish any of that adoration on myself. Sure, I buy myself shit, and call it “treating” myself, but it’s mostly buying myself stuff that will obliterate me (food, drink, guilty goodwill clothing purchases, etc.). I still cannot do something if the only reason I can come up with to do it is, “It will give me pleasure.” I still find that an absolutely insufficient reason.
But like you, something is shifting. I think I would like to do something simply for pleasure, rather than saying that someday I will do it, when I earn it, when I’ve exercised enough or magically lost weight or got the best grades or enough thank you cards at work or ran enough successful programs. I am sitting with the desire to like myself, to think that just by being alive, I might deserve pleasure. And like you said, in the desire there is space and hope and joy.
slf
May 30, 2011 at 11:08 pm
yes! yes! and that somehow, in recognizing the desire, there is some release of the tension that binds all the other stuff up. it is amazing what the glimmer of recognition of a latent or new desire will do. it is amazing and beautiful.
mcknz
May 30, 2011 at 11:14 pm