Patience

The first day of July. Tonight I feel lonely again. It's been a few days now since I felt it this acutely, mostly because I've been keeping myself very busy. I know distraction is not an answer though, and soon I will have to face it more directly.

I want Romi, but it definitely doesn't feel right. He's such a child in so many ways. He also seems scared of me- intimidated most likely. I feel like I'm falling into old habits with my crush on him- tall, dark, man-child who will look at me as an idol instead of a partner. Finding myself here again, I have to ask: where did I go wrong with Colin? He still seems like the opposite of everything I naturally incline toward and therefore logically exactly what I need. But he doesn't need me in any way. He might like me, but he doesn't need me and maybe that is what I really crave. I want to be needed, like so many other women. I don't feel unique at all when I think of it that way. I guess I'm just another woman and he is just one more man like all the rest. But...

I'm so tired of looking for love! I'm ready, damnit! Universe, please send me someone to love! Yet, again tonight there is no one for me and so I must reluctantly conclude that I still have something to learn. Maybe the only real lesson left for me is patience. Maybe that's all there is for me now: the hardest lesson of all lies in the long wait for my turn at love.

I feel like I am losing my vitality (and my mind) in all this waiting. I feel I am growing lifeless and losing courage, will, and drive in the long, interminable wait. I fear I am losing my capacity to give love fully and also to receive or accept love from others. I am losing my ability to recognize the expression of love when I see it. How much longer can this wait go on??

I will walk to the ends of the earth for love. I will give up anything you ask of me. I will push through any challenge and defy any foe for the chance to really love again. Unfortunately, there is no path to tread, nothing to sacrifice, and no enemy at the gates. The only real obstacle is time, and the only action I can take now is to cultivate patience.

Please, just give me something to do! I beg you to let me battle my way to love. I grovel at your feet, Divine Mother, and ask you to send me to the front lines. Let me die in the passion and power of my crusade for love. Don't doom me to this miserable half-life, this purgatory of patience!

Where is my love tonight? Where is the phantom that menaces my heart? There is no face for me to dwell on, no sweet remembered kiss to conjure up as I touch myself in the darkness. Only the black, infinite void in which my love resides.

Of course I know that void is within my own heart, and the love I seek is there as well. I know how foolish, how pointless this fantasy of the phantom lover is. I know that love is not dependent on an object, or an image. Love is greater than such transient things as bodies or faces. Love is greater than a kiss, greater than touch, greater than the ache of separation or the joy of reunion. Greater still than trust, loyalty, fidelity. Far greater than my lifetime, far greater than time itself. I know that love is beyond all these things... and yet these are such beautiful ways to express it! In the end, as body-bound humans with such a short and limited existence, what more do we really have -or need- than the beautiful expression of love?

I think I am coming to understand that I can both know the infinite nature of love and find joy in the tangible, earthly expression of it. A joy that surpasses anything else I might ever encounter. A joy that both contains and transcends everything that makes me human. Knowing that love transcends attachment doesn't bar me from finding beauty, peace, understanding, and forgiveness in the expression of love that is engendered by mindful attachments to others. This kind of attachment, balanced with an understanding of the infinite nature of love, might more suitably be called CONNECTION. I don't want to shy away from connection anymore.

I'm ready for love. I'm ready to fully express my love to another limited being who can reciprocate to the best of their own abilities. I am ready for connection. I am even ready to be dissapointed or have my perspective drastically altered. I'm ready for anything, really, except this endless wait. The last lesson BEFORE I find love.

"Patience, darling, it will come", whispers the moon tonight.
"Patience, patience" sigh the clouds that obscure her milky face.
"Patience, patience, it will come", says the cold night air, pregnant with a stillborn summer.
"Patience, darling", sings my inhaled breath as it caresses my restless heart.
It will come. But when?