Cultivating Nourishment

Dear Universe

Posted on January 10, 2015 Updated on May 22, 2015

Dear Universe,

I have recently been reminded that you are endlessly attentive and reflective. Although we have lived together for quite some time now, I regret that I have neglected you in my thoughts and prayers, although you heard and responded to all of them. This is not going to be a repentant letter. This is a letter of rejoicing. Overjoyed to be reunited with you. Thank you for always being there; for always abiding by my wishes, even when I didn’t know what was good for me or made defeating choices. You have been the most honest and consistent force in my life. So, thank you.

I would like to announce that I am ready to invite a partner into my life. I want to write the next chapter of my life. It is time for me to learn the important lessons that come from sharing a life, a space and a love with another person. For years, I have been terrified to the point of self-sufficiency, being a different kind of brave. I know that it is never too late and today is a great day to set this intention and broadcast this invitation. I am confident that something will grow and blossom from it.

I believe that a family and a life is constructed in increments. Decisions accumulate and my life is the result. I believe that there are many ways to live successfully in union although I never have. There is not just one person out there that is right for me; there are lots, I have just not been ready to meet him. Today I am ready. So I announce this, to myself, to you and to all that hear. This makes it true and will bring about a needed change.

Please let him know that I am here.

In my early 20’s I passed up the love of several  good men because I didn’t recognize how precious they were, because I was terrified of what it might mean to be the woman they wanted me to be. When I eventually trusted myself to really give my love to someone, I got to savor the delicious despair of living in a world where he chose not to meet me in love. He had his reasons and I learned the pain of love.

Since then there have been love affairs that burned hot and fast like shooting starts but with the infrequency of lunar eclipse.

In that time I have not risked completely giving myself over to the possibility of another risk. I have practiced being alone. I have prided myself and built my self image around strength of spirit and independence.

Now I am ready to make room in my life and in my heart for a partner and a companion although I am bewildered about how to do that. I am equally afraid of my success and my failure in this effort. I am simultaneously baffled and confident that there is someone out there that wants some of the same things in life that I want: (in no particular order)

• to build and live in a tiny house
• to cultivate a grand garden
• to travel religiously and perpetually.
• to teach (there are lots of way to do this)
• to live internationally
• to have children in the next year or so
• to sit quietly
• to eat, cook and live with healthy simplicity
• to live gently and deliberately
• to not own a television

There is more to me than this, but I want a partner that wants these same things. I want to learn to share. I want to find someone with whom compromise is a pleasure not a chore because our goals are similar. With this intention I set out on a quest. A partner quest; to find a quest companion. Not just to end a story but to begin one as well. Not just to sail off into the sunset, but to work and love and suffer and dance along side someone, to explore this earth and ourselves and this life… to practice sharing. To be the best (and worst) parts of myself with someone else. Embracing the duality, the reality, the complexity.

I write to the universe because it has never let me down and I write to you, my friends because neither have you. Years ago a friend suggested I read a book called, “Around the world in 80 dates” by Jennifer Cox. I thought it had an amusing title and would be entertaining, but it is courageous story of a woman setting out to find a partner. She wrote to her entire network of friends, family and colleagues with a proposal (the very same I am about to make to you.) She asked they help her find a partner. As a result she was introduced to a series of fascinating people around the globe and as in most books, she found her happy ending. I am mustering the courage to ask you the very same favor. I don’t need 80 and I may not go all around the world, but I am ready to meet him, so help me find him.

I am determined to be open and authentic, to interact and meet the world head on with courage, vulnerability and patience. In the next year I am taking time to explore various passions that have patiently waited on a back shelf. In that process I hope to meet someone to craft a life with. Nothing is ever that simple; not even in the movies. No interesting stories happen that way, so I am gearing up for fascinating challenge.

I need your help. I ask the universe and  you are the moving parts…

Set me up with someone you think will be good for me… and I for him. I have 12 months before I will be working again full-time and so the time is now. You know me well, better than I know myself at times. I have a passport, time to travel and the willingness to try. I won’t write a job description nor do I have the formula for a perfect man or my Mr. Right. I can stomach cliques, I write mostly that way anyway, but I have a limit. So send the soul mates, Mr. Right’s, and dream guys my way. I will sort it out from there.

While I plan to be making a temporary home base (for the year) in Colombia, I may be on 4 continents (S. America, N. America, Asia and Europe) in the next year… and am open to further flung destinations too.

Once I thought I would write 5 letters to the men in my life that I loved the most (I was lucky to have 5 festering crushes at the time). I thought I might just write to each of them seriously proposing the possibility of marriage. I never sent the letters, I never dated them. Most of them are married now… some have kids. None are married to me. The kids are not my kids. Should I have sent the letters? No, I think I have arrived at a perfectly lovely part of my life, settling in to the idea of growing up in another way. Familiarizing myself with another possibility.

You remember that I am long-winded. It takes me a while to say what I mean when I am not entirely sure. Like my students some times I just talk or write hoping that someone else will find logic and meaning in my spoutings. It hasn’t really worked yet with my students, so I don’t suppose it will work now. So for now I write to myself and for myself until I can coalesce meaning from the froth.

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2005/jan/02/observerescapesection2

(Written March 2014. Much has changed, but not every thing.)