My power drill’s battery is dead so until it charges I can’t finish up the bed/storage unit for my Honda. Good time to sit down and contemplate.
And that’s the main point of this blog. To contemplate. Although I enjoy making posts about the physical journey, it’s actually what it evokes on my inward journey that is most important to me.
This is a difficult subject for me to open up about because it is just about the most vulnerable subject I can think of. However, I would not be honoring these emotions if I just kept them bottled up. I’ve already experienced how much conflict I have created by denying my desire to roam. If I don’t continue to listen to my differing and conflicting desires I would not be honoring my original mission to live as freely as I can.
Indulging the desire to roam has brought up some conflicts within, which I completely expected it to. At first it was self-doubt. I thought perhaps I was just acting out once again on some ancient negative pattern. However as I took a rational approach to negotiating with the side of me that desires to roam, I realize more and more that it is anything but a self destructive desire. Once I was able to come to terms with that, a new feeling arose. It was one of sadness around the topic of loneliness. I began to realize that I’ve set a different bar for the possibilities of a relationship in the near future. If I do begin dating again, whomever I date may conflict with my desire to roam. The more I think about it, the more I know that if I meet someone who doesn’t have that desire too, and is willing to act on it, it’s likely to be a deal breaker.
The desire to take this journey with another is a painful prospect. It’s painful because I think it is unlikely I will find someone to join me and yet the desire remains. That may just be an mechanism for me to avoid opening up to the possibility of a relationship. If I’m honest about everything related to this, I still am having trouble trusting myself to be in a relationship again. It definitely feels like I want to avoid the possibility of pain. I don’t blame myself for that because what I experienced over a year ago with my breakup was the most painful experience of my adult life.
I am sure there is wisdom in the fear of pain. It helps us to learn from our mistakes and we are given the opportunity to not create those painful situations again. I’ve been trying hard to understand what went wrong in my last relationship to minimize the possibility of that pain. A year in the most intensive therapy I have experienced has helped me to gain some great insights. However I still have that fear and those pangs of pain associated with remembering the pain of the mistakes I have made. That to me tells me that I still have something to learn.
At the same time I don’t think I can completely process this pain without actually experiencing another relationship. My therapist has said this explicitly to me. He says that I will not ever be “over” any of my past relationships. Something from those relationships will always follow me through to other relationships because you can’t have a relationship without it leaving its mark. That’s not to say that the relationship marks I carry are necessarily a bad thing, but it is important to be aware of them and what they mean for future relationships.
The biggest part of it is going to be learning to trust someone again and on the flip side of that coin it’s going to be learning to trust that I can be honest and open with someone. That’s scary as hell to me but I think my desire will win out over my fear if I continue to recognize and listen to these feelings.
