As a single woman in my 30’s, typically dating single men in their 30’s, I find that most of us want to discuss our past hurts, failures, and issues with love and romance. Most of us seem to have walls and borders that we don’t even know exist when it comes to dating…. we’re so used to the “way it always ends up”, or “the rules” we have set for ourselves in terms of dating, and I’m guilty of this too, that we could be missing out on the greatest person we’ll ever meet standing right in front of us.
I find that when I meet someone, all too often we just want to lay all of our baggage out, all of our issues, almost as if to say.. “these are my problems, this is why I’m single, and you really don’t want me…” when in reality all we really, truly want is to be known,and loved for who we are, flaws and all.
I am making a concious effort to be more childlike with each person I meet, to have an innocence and an optimism with each potential partner, to take things slow without putting any labels on things, or trying to immediately turn someone into a boyfriend.. I want to get to know you, in the present moment, who you are now, your hopes and dreams, I don’t want to talk about this guy, or that girl, or that heartache.. those things will come with time.. but I want to spend our time together fully in the moment, getting to know each other, laughing and smiling, whether it’s a coffee, or a date.. and every so often a gentle kiss, a warm hug, a tender caress… slowly, getting to know one another.
This reminds me of one of my favorite writings of all time…
An excerpt from The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Tell me what you ache for. I don’t want to hear one more dysfunctional family history as an explanation for your current human frailities. Let me taste your stories in the salt of the tears I brush from your eyelashes. I long for a slow-motion meander in the getting familiar places. I want to spiral close, almost touchin, to the place where we can feel the heat in the air between us, an unhurried journey as we sift through new scents of each other, letting them linger in our nostrils, breathing them in deeply, allowing our bodies and hearts to taste the impulse to move toward each other before we move.
I want to be courted by the truth. Let the stories that are telling our lives spin out in long multicolored threads. Dont’ tell me too much, too soon. Don’t hide anything. Tell the tales of your heart, offer them like pearls coming up from the depths of the sea to be strung together, each gently clicking against the other, luminous and iridescent as they roll out of the moistness. Ten years from now I want to hear a story from your childhood that I have never heard before and know the delight and ongoing awe of seeing each other for the first time, again and again. Give me each picture slowly, so I can sit with it and find you, and the glimpse of me, and the foreshadows of us there in the details. I want to talk in seamless conversation all night long and find ourselves able to hold the silence together for days, our intimacy sharpened by shared solitude.
And if we are to be lovers for the first time or again, after many times, let the lovemaking be filled with shyness and discovery the way it was, or could have been, when we were sixteen; today a kiss that lingers, a touch on the back of my neck that I can feel for hours; tomorrow a light caress across my breast that makes my breath catch. I want to savor each discovery of touch as the infinite unfolding of the other. I want to slow it all down, to wander around wet, aching for what is to come next, so I will know when I have been fully entered, whether by your body, your story, or just simply the moment that passes between us.
originally posted on Leah Cevoli’s tumblr on November 3rd, 2011
