News
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
Published: May 05, 2004 - 09:56 AM
Marriage was never high on my to-do list of things that I wanted to accomplish in my life time. I was never one of those girls who fantasized about Prince Charming and the fairytale wedding with the beautiful white dress. My answer to that was always, whose fairytale is it anyway?
Maybe, I was afraid of love and the surrender -- I didn't want to become a non-person in my own skin by permanently attaching myself to someone who didn't appreciate my spirit. I didn't want to wake up in the morning with resentments piled high on my side of the bed like I'd seen in a lot of marriages while growing up. I wanted someone who knew the color of my soul, and so my rejection of marriage was to preserve that sacred part of myself.
Maybe, I was a product of my environment. I'd grown up with my parent's cat and dog relationship. My parents divorced each other and then re-married each other. I used to think that I didn't want to lose myself to someone else because I saw my mother sacrificing herself and doing all the work in the relationship -- she did everything financially, and she was the one trying to keep it together while my father didn't really show up. He was there for most of it, but I mean he could have phoned in the whole thing. It didn't really make any difference whether he was there or not as he wasn't participating in any of it.
Though, I admired her strength at keeping it together, I didn't want to have to work that hard to keep anything together. I found out the other day that my mother used to write when she was in her teens. She had an external way of keeping and expressing her spirit. For me, that was a sad revelation as I have never seen her write anything in all of my forty years. How do you stop writing cold and not lose a part of yourself?
That is what I mean about losing myself. I used to see marriage as something that suffocated one's spirit because I had seen my mother work all her life -- and work really hard at saving a one-sided relationship. She was mechanical about life, and she really didn't stop to nurture herself. She didn't have any interests outside of work and home, and I have always wondered how much of herself she'd sacrificed in the marriage.
Now, I find myself engaged and about to be married, and I am not surprised at all. No. I am not surprised, because we are allowed to reassess the fears in our lives as we grow. At forty, I am at that point in my life where all is right, and I am ready to share my life with the right person. We are both at the same point in our lives. A lot of people are in relationships where one has to play catch up, and they will never be at the same point with the same visions. I am ready for marriage.
It took someone exceptional to quell my fears about love and marriage. The thing about L is that he moved me. He moved me with his beautiful poetic words about love and life. He opened my heart with his generous love, and I wasn't afraid to tell him about the unicorns and the man in the moon. My views on marriage have changed drastically over the past two years as I realized that my mother's experience through my eyes did not have to be my own. My parents? struggles in their marriage do not have to be ours.
I am not afraid of love with L because, until he came along, I had never found anyone who was in awe of my spirit and comfortable with my strength. L says, I have opened up his eyes to seeing the world differently. He says that he sees the world beyond what is presented. I make him see the poetry in the world. With him, my spirit is allowed to soar and not take a backseat the way my mother's had. We have many things to learn from each other.
Love and marriage are learning experiences where together you find your rhythm. My parents eventually found their rhythm and are fine now. Together L and I have begun to find our rhythm. It is in the respect for each other's individual spirit, and it is in the laughter we share. My parents lacked that in their marriage. The thing is that we laugh our asses off while trying to figure out the best way to live and love each other. And sometimes, it is not even funny, but yet we find the hilarity in it. I have never laughed so much in my life. But, maybe, it is as Zora Neale Hurston says: "Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."
Copyright?2004 Dawn Gale Prince. All rights reserved.
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Dawn Gale Prince is a freelance writer of personal essays that celebrate the small discoveries of love, life and the journey. She?s pleased to share her voice and her simple truth. She may be reached at gurlnts@netscape.net.
********************************************************************
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Maybe, I was a product of my environment. I'd grown up with my parent's cat and dog relationship. My parents divorced each other and then re-married each other. I used to think that I didn't want to lose myself to someone else because I saw my mother sacrificing herself and doing all the work in the relationship -- she did everything financially, and she was the one trying to keep it together while my father didn't really show up. He was there for most of it, but I mean he could have phoned in the whole thing. It didn't really make any difference whether he was there or not as he wasn't participating in any of it.
Though, I admired her strength at keeping it together, I didn't want to have to work that hard to keep anything together. I found out the other day that my mother used to write when she was in her teens. She had an external way of keeping and expressing her spirit. For me, that was a sad revelation as I have never seen her write anything in all of my forty years. How do you stop writing cold and not lose a part of yourself?
That is what I mean about losing myself. I used to see marriage as something that suffocated one's spirit because I had seen my mother work all her life -- and work really hard at saving a one-sided relationship. She was mechanical about life, and she really didn't stop to nurture herself. She didn't have any interests outside of work and home, and I have always wondered how much of herself she'd sacrificed in the marriage.
Now, I find myself engaged and about to be married, and I am not surprised at all. No. I am not surprised, because we are allowed to reassess the fears in our lives as we grow. At forty, I am at that point in my life where all is right, and I am ready to share my life with the right person. We are both at the same point in our lives. A lot of people are in relationships where one has to play catch up, and they will never be at the same point with the same visions. I am ready for marriage.
It took someone exceptional to quell my fears about love and marriage. The thing about L is that he moved me. He moved me with his beautiful poetic words about love and life. He opened my heart with his generous love, and I wasn't afraid to tell him about the unicorns and the man in the moon. My views on marriage have changed drastically over the past two years as I realized that my mother's experience through my eyes did not have to be my own. My parents? struggles in their marriage do not have to be ours.
I am not afraid of love with L because, until he came along, I had never found anyone who was in awe of my spirit and comfortable with my strength. L says, I have opened up his eyes to seeing the world differently. He says that he sees the world beyond what is presented. I make him see the poetry in the world. With him, my spirit is allowed to soar and not take a backseat the way my mother's had. We have many things to learn from each other.
Love and marriage are learning experiences where together you find your rhythm. My parents eventually found their rhythm and are fine now. Together L and I have begun to find our rhythm. It is in the respect for each other's individual spirit, and it is in the laughter we share. My parents lacked that in their marriage. The thing is that we laugh our asses off while trying to figure out the best way to live and love each other. And sometimes, it is not even funny, but yet we find the hilarity in it. I have never laughed so much in my life. But, maybe, it is as Zora Neale Hurston says: "Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."
Copyright?2004 Dawn Gale Prince. All rights reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dawn Gale Prince is a freelance writer of personal essays that celebrate the small discoveries of love, life and the journey. She?s pleased to share her voice and her simple truth. She may be reached at gurlnts@netscape.net.
********************************************************************
Subscribe to the neWomen.com NewsLetter and receive updates of what is going on right in your mailbox. You choose whether its HTML or Text. We do the rest. Deliveries are made at the end of each week.
neWomen.com NewsLetter