A lesson in not losing love

I got the email today that I had been expecting and dreading. The one that confirmed I have been left behind. The one that leaves me feeling ashamed to still be single.

How screwy is that? I feel embarrassed that I've not been successful in love.

I knew the news was coming. I said as much to a friend three weeks ago. It's just that I hoped I wouldn't hear it until I had met my own 'someone'. Oh, don't get me wrong. I am completely aware that it is good thing and excited about the new phase that it heralds. Even so, the news knocked the breath out of me.

I read a wonderful article last year about love. It was written by Ruth Ostrow and spoke about the inadequacy of the word 'love' in the English language. In other languages there are many ways to express it. For us, we're stuck on love. Heady, demanding, eros-centred love.

For most of my life I didn't believe that love really existed. As a child, I told my family that I loved them but had no concept of what that really was. As a teenager, I had parents who were very out of love with each other. As part of a young couple, I felt forced into saying it. I thought that love was something people kept spouting on about and saying to one another because they thought it's what they had to say and didn't want to be left out of what everyone else was pretending to feel. Really, I thought to myself, they don't know what it is either, so it probably isn't a real emotion.

Then I met someone who made everything feel safe. He made it safe to feel love. It was like magic. I felt that I had endless amounts to go around. At first, it didn't matter that it was never returned and when I noticed that I was hoping it would be returned, I counselled myself that giving love is better than receiving.

He was always very honest with me, gentle with my feelings and considerate of my heart. As much as you can be, I guess, when you don't feel the same. I will always love him for making it safe for me to feel love. That's a very special thing to do for a person.

If wishes were fishes

You know the old adage, 'be careful what you wish for'?  I do. I am always careful when I offer up my wishes.

Think of the genie who dupes the wish-maker, twisting their wish into something unasked for. I try to be sure that what I'm asking for is really something that I need. I always follow up with a promise to stay open to opportunities I can't yet see, but which seem always to come up.

So then, what to do when the universe delivers up something resembling your wish, but which isn't quite what you had in mind?

Did I ask it the wrong way? Have I inadvertently asked for the wrong thing? Can I ignore it and let it go away?

Or has the universe, the cosmos, given me exactly what I needed, and I just don't realise it yet?

Do I accept this gift and hope to find a hidden beauty in it? Or do I trust myself and hold true to what I believe is a better thing?

And therein lies my problem. My intuition is strong. I know that. I have gone far by trusting it. Yet I wonder, does the universe know something I don't?

Brown paper packages tied up with string

These are a few of my favourite things.

I love astrology. I read Mystic Medusa, because she is avant garde. I read Jonathan Cainer because he is grounded.

I love mountain biking. When I labour up a hill, breathing like I'm half-woman-half-rhino, it's with building anticipation of the thrilling downhill chase that must surely come.

I love reading fantasy novels. I have done ever since I read Magician. I escape into them. I know that makes me dorky, or nerdy, or something. But I don't care. I can't care, when I read authors like Patrick Rothfuss, who picks up mundanity and puts back pearls.

'It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts. The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking.'

'Old Cob tucked away his stew with the predatory efficiency of a lifetime bachelor.'

I love my life.

I experience a lot moments of true, deep joy and I am thankful.