Mysterious Ways.

It’s a forgone conclusion in my life that every girl whom I happen to have some feelings for always has feelings for someone else. It’s a foregone conclusion because a part of me always feels drawn to people who need me in their lives. Almost as if I’m drawn to whatever relationship is self-validating.

Maybe that’s a selfish way of looking at things. But I believe that in any relationship, be it a friendship, psychiatric relationship, romantic relationship, etc; that in order for that relationship to thrive, it has to have positive consequences for both parties in that relationship.

Neither party is left unchanged within any relationship. Certainly Carl Rogers and many of his ilk tell us that the relationship is the common ‘safe place’ within which one is allowed to fully become himself or herself, and to engage and seek his or her maximum potential. The relationship is the source and catalyst of change.

Even so, I find myself attracted to persons who eventually to reveal to me that they have affections for someone else. Possibly I cross over into the ‘friend’ realm too quickly. Dare I say that I’m not pretty enough? Dare I conclude that I am not charming enough? Not enough of a catch? Possibly.

So far I’ve always found people who compliment me. We go well together, like a ham and cheese omelette, or like gin and vermouth. Yet going well together doesn’t quite cut it, does it? Somehow the people I find who complete me, or can potentially complete me, are always out of reach.

John Steinback wrote in Of Mice And Men, “As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment. And then the moment was gone.”

And that is how I feel sometimes. That you almost for a moment see yourself twenty years later, and still in love, almost, but not quite. And then it’s gone. Finished before it began.

It’s because that part of your soul that you’ve always been missing has been found.

It’s because that one person brings out the best in you and more.

It’s because that one person makes you believe.

It’s because that one person completes your life so utterly that you’d rather spend a single minute with her than a thousand years without.

It’s because that one person is who you’ve yearned for all the long days of your life.

Some days I’m thankful that I do have that many friends. Others, I wish I was something more than just a good friend. Being a good friend is powerfully limiting. Lose the possibility of a romantic relationship, or potentially lose the friendship. Maybe I don’t want to lose, but very often I never end up telling the person how I really feel about her.

Maybe I delude myself whenever I say ‘she is the one’. Maybe we’re all just looking. Maybe some of us have found that someone. Maybe it’s you.