The Waiting Game & Finding Love

Our society is fast paced and goal orientated and love does suffer because of this. The pace continues to quicken as technology aids in advancing our lifestyle. Divorce rates are high and growing exponentially and our children are suffering because of this. We are far too quick with our decision making which makes us highly impulsive, especially when it comes to falling in love. The vast majority of us only knows lust and do not know how to be in love. We have been condition to believe that we “fall” in love, get married, and start a family. This conditioning along with our fast-paced goal orientated lifestyle has become a deep seeded evil in our quest to find a deeply loving and meaningful relationship with someone. Our life-style is suffocating the love out of us and has turned us into people who only know how to “do” in love and not “be” in love!

We are all not so different, as humans we share an existence that is similar. We are born into the word and spend a lifetime pursuing truth. During this pursuit we make astonishing discoveries about ourselves, others, human nature, and life. We are desperately trying to figure out the meaning of our lives. What are we suppose to be doing with the limited amount of time we have in this body to accomplish what it is that we need to accomplish? Some of us know exactly what it is that we want to accomplish, while others become the wanderers drifting along for awhile before they find their niche- some never do find it. I have come to consider myself a wanderer and see no shame in it, perhaps I am drifting the right way, perhaps not, but it is a chance I am willing to take.

Just as there is a quest to discovering life there is also a quest to discovering love. Some of us get a lucky break and find true love right off. Some of us find ourselves “impulsively” settling with what we have even though it is not what we need or truly want, but we settle anyways. Some of us never give up hope and continue through a lifetime trying to find that “one”. It is a journey and for some it is never found, not during this lifetime that is the way fate can play its hand. It is what it is. My truth in this matter is that I know I have not found what I am looking for and I am not willing to settle until I know for sure.

Sure I would like to have a family but at what cost? Do I settle with someone I am not entirely happy with just to have children? Surely not, because it would not be fair to my children and it would not be fair to my partner. I firmly believe that too many young people jump into the throws of lust and desire, get married, have kids, and then separate because it has become an impulsive choice influenced by an impulsive world. I have many friends who married in their early to mid twenties, had some children and are now divorced. In conversation with them I often learn that they felt like the “had” to get married because that is what society and “religious dogma” tells them.

If I had I gotten married in my mid twenties I know I would be in the same place many of my friends are in now. Honestly, there was a point in time where I considered marrying my first long term boyfriend because I too, thought it was what I suppose to do. I am so glad that possibility never came to fruition. Too many women and men think this is what they are suppose to do; they get married, become the “good wife” or “good husband”, and start a family. It had always been like this, it has been programmed in us, but times have changed, no longer are we living the “Leave It to Beaver” lifestyle- that lifestyle died out not long after the sitcom.

Cost of living has increased exuberantly and this now means starting a family is a huge financial undertaking, and as we all know, money and finance combine to be one of the main forces of destruction in a marriage. We have not changed our thinking and perspectives to this realization and many people continue to pursue a family lifestyle that just doesn’t exist for the vast population (unless you are made of money). Many mothers would love to have the option of being a stay at home mom, but realty dishes up a cruel taste of needing a second income to maintain a “normal” lifestyle- to be able to give your kids what they need. Husbands and wives around the world are making enormous sacrifices for their kids, sometimes at a detriment to themselves and their relationship. This creates discord, resentment, and often, chaos and destruction in a marriage.

Few men I know were ever ready to have a family back in their twenties and the ones who thought they were are now divorced facing the bitter reality that they have now found their life partner but are “stuck” with past commitments. I know that sounds horrible but I understand the resentment completely. During a recent conversation with a friend of mine told me that no matter how much he loves his children with his first wife, he still wishes he never settled and married especially when he knew she wasn’t the “one” for him. Now he has found the “one” and is happier than ever and even expecting a child with her, but still harbors a deep resentment about his first marriage and guilt over being a distant father with his first kids. I personally do not want to ever know what that feels like. We can judge someone all we want, but truth is we never know what that person is experiencing on a personal level.

I am glad that I did not get married young and I am glad I am not a parent yet. I know for certain now that I was not mature enough at that time for that decision. People are living longer healthier lives (for the most part) and some say thirty has become the new twenty, so with this perspective I know what it is that I am looking for now. I have been in my fair share of relationships to ascertain what it is that I need. I also am mature enough to understand that I have yet to know what love is. I have learned that you can love someone while not being “in love”. I know few people who have been successful “in love”. I have written before about my aunt and uncle and their love, each truly believing that they are each others’ soul mate. When you are around them you can feel the love between them. Love that is pure and innocent is something many of us have not found yet and many of us never will. Love is very hard to find and that is a certain truth that none of us should ever be blind to. Don’t settle on impulse and lust, wait and you will see, hopefully if you are a lucky one, what it is like to truly know love.

Tell Me What It Is
Come--tell me what love is.
Love--that fickle idea of man--
That eludes and escapes those who wish to define it.
Love is the rainbow at the storms end.
The final chord in the grand syphony.
The unwritten stanza that can communicate a message--
Universally.
It is the finale to the fireworks on the Fourth of July--
Another Riddle of the Sphinx,
and always--eternally--Life's greatest mystery.
Unexpected, unpredictable--and bringer of joy or--
Heartbreak.
You are the complete of the puzzle-- And the puzzle itself.
Come--tell me what love is--
and tell my heart why it tears itself from my grasp...
And mourn with me that the colors and notes have faded away--


before I could find some paper.