My dream for my career was a simple one. I wanted to work only part time, and be a stay at home parent full time. I wanted to dedicate my life to having a strong, solid nuclear family. I wanted to spend my time growing and cooking organic foods, I wanted to spend my time helping my children learn, and grow as ethical people, I wanted the strong, solid family that I missed out on as a child.
When my relationship with Charles died, so did this dream. This dream is too dependant on the power of love, and I feel like now I am more in touch with love’s fallibility. I really thought that in Charles, I had someone who was on my side. I thought that his love for me was so strong that if I needed him, he would do what it took to keep me happy. My expectations were never much, even more reason for him to be there when I needed him.
But all it took was for him to get busy. All I asked for was for some e-mails telling me about his life. All I asked was to be included in his life. That is not a lot for a woman, who was faithful to him for 5 months, to ask. He not only didn’t come through, he dismissed my needs. Now that he’s back he wants to try to spark things back up, but only because it requires nothing of him but to enjoy me. Love failed.
If there was any glimmer of hope left in me that love was a possibility, Alan squashed that. No, I didn’t love him, nor did he love me, but he showed me the extreme ability a person has to hurt you if you let your heart be vulnerable. This is of course why people don’t suggest rebound relationships, because I feel like I have been hit with a double whammy.
My dream of running a nuclear family unfortunately depends on the strength of love. If love fails, the family breaks up, and I am no longer a full time mom with a part time job on the side, I become a full time single mom with a part time job on the side. If I am too fearful of being a full time mom with a full time job, then I can’t be a single mom. If love fails me then I am in a harder situation than being alone.
I can live my dream to a minor extent. I can cook organic food for myself, but the difference is it is harder to create this dream life when I have a full time job occupying my time. But that’s okay. I can just do my best, just like a parent does with their kids. And it is wrong to say I want a recipient of my work, because I am a worthy recipient.
That is one thing that was great about having Alan in my life. I always cleaned my room before he came over, so I became a girl with a clean room! I like being that girl! I have lost Alan, but that doesn’t mean I have to lose the girl I was with Alan. My room was clean, I felt confident and appealing, worthy of affection. I can still feel that way if I decide to. Him being my life was simply validation of these things, he did not give them to me.
I think getting hurt so bad twice in a row is a good thing. Let it happen now, not after I have had kids and put all my eggs in the husband basket. And let’s face it, I had ALL my eggs in the husband basket. It was really idealistic of me, a strange behavior coming from a child of not only divorce, but the child of a man who failed me and my mother so extremely. I think Charles and Alan have slapped some sense into me in that way, and I am lucky to get the message while I am young and childless.
And my biological clock is not necessarily ticking. I can still adopt, or adopt foster kids, but hell, what an expensive choice, right?
Love being the core of marriage is a relatively new concept, and sometimes a silly one. It’s not silly for love to be the foundation, but to expect to remain “in love” throughout a marriage, especially while kids are involved, is really pretty unrealistic. I am not sure why I, a person who has been dealt many blows in life, would be so irrational all of a sudden. Maybe I wanted to be saved from my past. Maybe I was putting hope in a future that would erase my past. Maybe the fantasy of an ideal nuclear family intoxicated me so I wasn’t in touch with reality. But I am now.
So what shall be my new dream?
No comments:
Post a Comment