An Intimate Landing

            I watch as soldiers go off to war and come back to loved ones’ arms. It’s always one of those tearful moments that bring me to an intimate place in my own heart, because we all want to land in the arms of love. Don’t we?

            What person doesn’t honestly need someone’s carrying? I think there may be a person out there who has cut himself off from needing anything from anyone. But I don’t imagine the reason is because the instinctual act of needing isn’t present. I believe it is because that individual has been hurt by his or her vulnerability at some point in his pursuit of relationship.

            You know the first thing a baby does when it comes from the womb is cry. We are programmed from birth to need. We need comfort, food, the love of a parent, the nurturing of a someone intimate, clothes, warmth, and countless other things as we grow older. Notwithstanding education and safe boundaries, which come very easily when hurt and love are so intermingled in our relationships today.

            We can love and think we love unconditionally. But in the next minute, when relationship disrupts our life and our peace, we may rethink love entirely, and call it hate in the next moment. This is what divorce is, isn’t it? You start off thinking that someone is, indeed, the “intimate landing” you have been praying and hoping for, but, instead, they become the burden you can’t seem to shake.

            Is this where the nature of love is going today, or will we become stronger individuals with more tolerance for growth in relationships?

            I had a great lunch with a dear friend who recently has been divorced and began dating again. Our conversation was centered around the idea that:  As we become older and more mature, perhaps more spiritually aware of who we are and what we need to be at peace, are we becoming less likely to find relationships that will last?

            I would have to say in all honesty and regretfully, Yes!

            The older I get, the less crap I’m willing to take. It sounds terrible, but true. I see bullshit coming at me from a mile away now. Instead of waiting to shovel it from my doorstep, I’d rather eject thebullshittee before the crap lands anywhere near me. Much less to clean up.

            We are becoming a nation of relationship bullshit ejectors. It’s true.

            My question to you is: Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Should we live with smelly, crappy relationships because we have committed to them, or should we recognize our capacity to survive said relations and bail when we know we are incapable to endure the pain they will probably bring in the long run?

            Listen, after as many relationships as I have been through over the last 35 years, I’m willing to level with you. There has only been one relationship in my life that I wish I would have endured through the pain and hardship. I’m really not even sure why I say this, as I see the man now in his present relationship. He doesn’t look like the ideal partner I’d imagined he would have become with me. Nonetheless, I think about it and regret.

            All the other relationship that have passed by me, I have danced with notion of getting back together and let the song I was dancing to end. Ultimately, I see termination somewhere in sight from some discrepancy or vast difference in ideals and beliefs.

            All that being said, I still believe in true love. Many of my friends laugh at me, because I have been through so many bad relationships and hurt, yet I still see myself landing in the arms of love. (My mother must have had some strong pheromones or arms.)

            What I’m not sure of now, though, is landing in the same arms of love for my entire life. I don’t know if that’s even a possibility. That saddens me.

            A lot of the reason I can’t see myself lasting or enduring through to the end with one person is that I have no real strong icons to look up to that have gone the distance lovingly and respectfully. Every once in a while, I’ll meet a couple who I think may pull through and land on their feet in the long run. They gives me hope.

            Then I think of the friend who was 20 years into a loving marriage with 3 children and woke up to find her husband was not the man she knew for 20 years. It was as if he had changed over night into some maniac 15 year old with the testosterone levels of one, as well.

            You look at this scenario and couple it with your own sorry stories of regret and mistrust and foul play, and suddenly you are no longer looking at that successful couple with the idea that they will last. You begin to pray that nothing serious will break them up, or that death won’t come too soon to either one of them. Because there is ultimately an death to all relationships.

            Wow, this is getting heavy and I think it’s because I just watched the second presidential debate between Obama and Gov. Romney. Scary stuff. All of it.

            I think I’m going to bed with a teddy bear and a pacifier tonight.

            I actually would really like some feedback on this today if you have time to write in the blog.