Last month I asked "how do you know when you are loved?"
I thought I knew the answer to this question. But after six weeks of relationship struggles that threatened not only 15 years of partnership but also my capacity to farm my land and keep my horses, I discovered that I had no clue.
I only knew what I believed I needed to feel loved, cherished, desired, etc. When those symbols of being loved were absent, I felt unloved. But does a lack of specific contact, actions, words or gestures mean that I am not loved- or worse, that I am unlovable?
And yet, my partner feels she loves me even though I can feel and see evidence that her love for me is less or different from what I expect and demand from her in order to feel loved.
Do you remember your first love? What about the first book or movie that let you know that the feelings you were feeling about another was love? What else was going on in your life at that time?
I ask these questions because my first love didn't go so well. In fact, it went so badly that I seem to have committed myself to repeating it over and over in the twisted hope of getting it right. The interesting thing about the timing of my first love is that I had just discovered a passion for writing, riding and playing sports. Not only did I ride to a Grand Championship at a series of horse shows in Oregon and Washington, but I had the joy of reading Jane Austen for the first time. I was finally playing team sports (field hockey) and had had an amazing English teacher who encouraged my love for words. I was 15, I was in love and Jane Austen was showing me how to get "real love" instead of the inconstant and shady kind I was seeing in my peers and with my divorced parents.
I'll save you the angst and simply summarize: I went away to ride to glory on the circuit, wrote Austen-esque letters, and tasted the potential for a life worth living. When I came home, the girl was with someone else.
I have a theory that there are key moments in our young lives at which we make rules or decisions about which we arrange our lives.
For example, my 15 year old self (and what 15 year old doesn't know everything?) took this situation and came up with the following rule: I lost my first love because I went away and rode my horse and because my letters obviously didn't convey my feelings well enough. Therefore I must never leave my love's side, riding horses led to this pain, and I really have to work harder at communicating.
Thirty years later, I find myself obsessing over my relationship to the detriment of my riding and writing career. My life has been one long pursuit of studying human behavior, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, coaching, etc. because somewhere in all those fields I believed I would find the answer or a way to have done it differently. Never mind that what I really wanted to do was to be a wildlife biologist/C.S. Lewis-type writer. No, I had decided I was willing to do anything and give up everything so as to not feel that pain ever again. I was going to find, get and keep my soul mate forever- or die trying.
I actually believed that I lost the girl because I was doing what I loved. And worse, I believed that doing what I loved would always lead to disappointment and pain. Ever hear of self-fulfilling prophecies? If you haven't then you will find my picture next to the definition on Wikipedia.
I would like to rephrase my earlier question:
What do you expect being loved to feel and look like?
While you work on that, I am going to go out and do everything that I love. If I am lucky, and I think I will be, my true love will be there by my side while I do it... or shall I say, because I am doing what I love.
Jane Austen still got it right- it's the girl who stands by her heart's truth that gets the right one.
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