“I got my class picture today, Mommy. I’ll show you my best friends and the girls that chase me.”
“Do you like it when the girls chase you, Biz?”
“I like it because they can’t catch me.”
This from my six-year-old who refuses to kiss me because I’m a girl. He has maintained for at least a year that he does not like girls. However, he will make an exception for me since I’m his mother. Of course, I hear a lot about the girls at school that chase him and his friends. There are only a few of them, but “a whole pack” of girls.
I guess this is the beginning of love in kindergarten.
I’ve had love on the brain lately. My own thoughts on love and how they have changed over the years. How very different my idea of love is now from when I first my ex-husband when I was 18-years-old.
What do we know about love at 18? Or at 6? Or at 39, for that matter?
Finding myself on the other end of a 20 year relationship with one man, I wonder how different my life would be had I not made that commitment.
Honestly, I don’t want to find out. I love where I am in life now, and I wouldn’t be here had it not been for my experiences over those years. I did not have a bad marriage, nor do I have any regrets. In fact, I have two loving boys that remind me of this fact every day.
But I find myself more sensitive to other’s perceptions of what love is or should be now. I cringe when I hear someone say that their significant other makes them complete. Do we really need another human being – one human being, specifically – to be complete? How can we love someone deeply if we are not complete ourselves? And who up and decided we are only supposed to have one true love in our lives?
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t tell at least one person, other than my kids, that I love them. I’ve said that I found true love all around me in the midst of getting divorce. It was already there, of course. I just didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now.
I feel more complete than I ever have in my life.
What I’ve found over the past year in my single life is that I really like being alone. Not lonely. Just alone. Not dependent on another human being for acceptance or worthiness. Not making sacrifices to maintain some semblance of balance. As a fiercely independent person, being single suits me quite well actually. I have a lot of people and a lot of passions in my life. And the two boys I do live with are quite cute and fun.
How often do we chase after love, the kind of traditional love we are taught we are supposed to want, thinking it will bring us happiness? Maybe we like the chase, even if we don’t admit it. But what are we looking for? Are we really so incomplete that we need another human being to fill a void for the rest of our lives?
We all need love and compassion in our lives. But for me, for now, I’m happy to be chased but not caught.
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