Love Is a Revelation...

...every day, bit by bit, discovering new things, new reasons to love. Like those Russian eggs... painted beautifully on the outside. And then you realize there's a different beautiful egg inside that, and inside that and finally the smallest red egg on the inside, so small it only has room for a few designs. It doesn't matter that it's so small and plainer than the rest... you know it's the heart of the set. And then you can explore putting it back inside it's larger shells until you're at the beginning again.

I remember falling in love with the Sun... first noticing and loving the little spray of bubbles deep inside me, then the shifting, the heartbeat, the little bumps and ripples across my wide belly when he moved. I knew I was pregnant about a week after I conceived and so had 37 weeks to love him more every day. And then he was born, and I saw his face outside my dreams, and for the next 596 weeks give or take, I have fallen in love all over again; every day another reason to love him.

But he's my Sun, blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh, and loving him gave me new reasons to love myself, but we are one, he and I the way mother and son can only be.

Outside of him I looked for and have had love in other ways... with his dad, with friends and family. The hardest to get a handle on was soulmate love. I was born in love... when all else was falling down around me, I always knew I was loved, I always had home in my family. I have friends I've loved for more than 20 years. The hardest part for me was finding a soulmate who could understand all of me.

I began to realize a few years back that I first needed to understand all of me. My life has always been a little schizophrenic. I began to write this blog to unify the different stories in my life, because as stated elsewhere I often think the stories in my life have only one unifying factor: me. Otherwise, they don't often have much to do with each other:

The Bohemian toddler in Europe
The middle class Jamaican child
The not-so-middle class Jamaican yard pickney
The religious home-schooled kid
The Harlem Girl
The Jersey Girl
The Bronx Bar Girl
The Brooks Brothers Corporate Chick
The DV survivor
The Single Mom
The Student
The Artist.

And now, the Girlfriend, bitches.

But it took me knowing and unifying all those parts in myself, acknowledging all that I am, for me to be able to find the one I loved who could love all those parts of me. I realized the unifying factor in all those women was me... but while the ParentingPartner could wholeheartedly love the The Bronx Bar Girl and the Brooks Brothers Corporate Chick, he couldn't handle the Student. He didn't know the Artist because I never really showed her to him. He wasn't sure he liked the Jamaican yard pickney. He had no frame of reference to understand the Bohemian Toddler and so couldn't understand why his own Sun was a Bohemian Toddler.

Towards the end of the SixyearWar, when I started loving again, I loved several men because they contained parts I could relate to. But as those relationships began to dissolve--either amicably or forced--what I took away from each one was the things I loved about them in the first place, the joy, the honesty, the friend, the feeling of "home" and put them in one category. The things that didn't work--not being able to cross into other people groups, language barriers, visions, lack of artistic understanding or acceptance of the "pricklies" I get--I put in another pile and tried to see which ones I could or couldn't do without.

I actively thought about me. My strengths and comfort levels. And my weaknesses, too... but just not about where I fell down, but where I knew I may or may not be able to fix them. There are some things that just aren't "fixable" at this point-I am just me and really, I'm OK with it. And whoever loved me would have to know that and not get too annoyed about it or be willing to supplement me. I am easily distracted. I am chronically late. I obsess on detail. I think tangled thoughts. I need rules and rationale as a guide but I often go my own way. I'm slightly narcissistic--I tend to think I am more super than I really am. My mind is usually "out there" somewhere thinking over thoughts that don't have much to do with my every day, but need to be thought out so that I can function every day. I am not easily breakable and can tolerate a great amount of stress, but when I do break I fall apart. I am an all-or-nothing chick.

And right when I had decided I was good with me, that aside from the loneliness and lack of trustworthy sex my life was great, and alone I could pretty much compensate for my shortcomings, along came BigMan.

No, he didn't turn everything upside down. No, I didn't suddenly find my life going in another direction, nor was I hit over the head with a great big love. And we fought frequently in the beginning. But every day has been a revelation. The first being that he wasn't there for so long and now he's here every day as if he's always been.

When life gets scary or I'm stressed he reminds me that I' m not alone anymore. He reminds me by doing something that shows me I'm not alone. That's a revelation.

The other day I hung out with friends from the Sun's school in Harlem, then traveled to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to a WHOLE other setting... and as easily as I can slip from one group into another, he can, too. That was a revelation.

His physical attraction to me is a revelation. Not that I don't think I'm something, cuz I am... but I'm a 45 year old something as opposed to a 25 year old something, and lately I've been feeling the difference. It bugs me, because I am, afterall, slightly narcissistic. But he loves 45 year old something me.

We were always able to "spoon" or cuddle, but that's expected in the beginning. I guess it lasts for years, but I haven't had a real relationship in a while that lasted comfortably past a year... so here we are a year later, and when we sleep we still hold hands, or have legs touching. Even in the heat of summer. That's a revelation.

Loving him today, this morning, more than I did yesterday, is a revelation... knowing that my Sun can love him too, and safely, yet still love his dad... that's a revelation.

I wonder sometimes, what's next for us. He asked me the other day why I loved him when he was such a train wreck. I thought about it... but I'm a train wreck, too. My financial situation is really beyond repair. The hole I have to dig out of is overwhelming sometimes. I wonder sometimes if the love we've found is detrimental to us because since we've been together, we've been progressively broker. Do we bring each other down?

But on the other hand... we understand in each other the need to be ourselves. And he does encourage me to stay focused, to look up and see the bigger picture, to just "do" sometimes instead of "think". And I can remind him to look at the details, to think a little more, market differently, break out of the box he'd put himself in.

I think we'll be OK, sometimes. Most times, I guess... because I can't imagine life without him now, and that's the biggest revelation of all....

Comments

Lena said…
You are so wonderful, and I think I do understand, still.
Lena said…
Also, I would really love to re-post this blog on my site if you are okay with it (with a link to your blog, of course). You really touched me. I cannot find contact info on your site.

Popular Posts