Something on love & merit

Something…. because it’s not at all worked out.  If I won, earned, deserve, merit the love I have now, does that mean that I did not earn, deserve, merit love before, in my previous arrangement? That’s where my mind goes.  My true, true, honest, transparent, clear, complicated, adoring beloved man (longtime readers… there aren’t any any more, but if there were, they would notice that I never wrote this way about Daniel) says that there is no earning.  There is happening.  This year has been about putting myself in the path of happening and letting happening… happen.

I almost didn’t.  I almost ran away.  I sat across the table from myself (that’s what our first date was like) and because I had been taught not to value myself, I didn’t value this man.  I’ll call him Will, because that’s who Dorothea belonged with all along.  Dorothea and Daniel were from two very different stories.  They did not intersect in literature.  Anyway, I tried to walk away, or run away.

No, there is no merit here, just love, luck, the wit to say yes when someone said, “Are you quite sure?”  No, I wasn’t sure.  I am sure now.

Today I texted him: “I felt my heart breaking all day, breaking to make room for my love for you and yours for me.”  He called me to make sure I meant breaking in a good way.  I laughed till I almost fell out of my chair.  We are ridiculous in the most beautiful ways with each other.

Will I be boring now that I am so happy?  There is always work to worry about it.  And Milo… although he came over and now I am fine and settled and believe in his goodness. He isn’t punishing me, he’s just selfish in an age-appropriate way.

And I write to see my happiness– here it is!  Unearned, beautiful, necessary.

Where here is

Here is 11 months and 12 days since I moved out. Here is in a Starbucks in the far suburbs — office parks, shopping centers with no center, highway overpasses, nothing even as close to as old as I am, not even the trees.  Here is across the table from my lover (my lover!) who is frowning and doing that thing he does with his mouth when he is working on a hard problem.  Here is being 49 years old, crazy in love with someone who loves me more than I knew was possible, whose edges match my own.  Who is exceptionally beautiful when he thinks about his hard problems.

Here is far from Milo, geographically and spiritually, feeling as if Milo is punishing me for having a lover, whose presence is a quiet, persistent indictment of his father, a steady reminder that his father is not a good guy, not good to me, not actually good to women.

Here is in the midst of continued work uncertainty, once again feeling like I’m going to lose funding and therefore my salary and therefore my job, and being so tired of this feeling.  It’s the enemy of good work.  Here is judging that, professionally, this has been another wasted year.  I held the line, that was it.  In compassion, I tell myself that, at the double black diamond level at which I’m operating, it has been enough, it has been more than enough, it has been absolutely correct to focus on love and Milo and rugs (they are very good, thanks for asking.  I’m going to buy one more probably) and running again.  And let work persist as it has.  My boss, when I went to him for help, said, “You’re smart, you’re working on a really important issue.  I’m sure you’ll figure it out and something will happen.”  My organization doesn’t need me.  I will find somewhere I’m needed.

I re-read my blog posts from last December.  I sounded great.  I sounded like I had it all figured out.  What has this year been?  I’m still too close to it to unpack it.  Except for that whole falling in love thing.  Why do I not recognize that for the triumph that it is?  I take my courage and determination for granted.  Given what I’ve been through, the fact that I went back into the world and tried again, the way I honored myself by saying, “I want this, and I’ll go get it.”— that’s worth a dance party, at least.

Here is what I did this year.  I hired a professional photographer to take dating profile pictures, and woke up one morning at 5:30 to meet her at 6 to get the best light.  I needed to be big for myself, to decide to give myself every advantage in a visual medium.  Why, even as I type this, do I feel like shying away from this fact?  It was fun, it helped.  The photos are exactly how I want to present myself to the world.  I valued myself — so why does it make me uncomfortable now?

Because if I look too carefully at this, I will believe I can’t have all this goodness.