I often speak about a sense of ‘connection’ here on my little blog and I do so for good reason. As human beings we are driven to find connections with others and the more we do so, the more complete we feel.
It is also true that we cannot really feel connected to life unless we spend time alone and have a sense of balance within ourselves. We have to really like ourselves, and approve of ourselves.
I admit I never really envisaged a life on my own. I always wanted a husband and to have a family and I never gave the option of being a single girl much consideration. Yet, I have no crystal ball that can tell me what lies ahead for me and one day I may be that single girl; family grown up and on my own. I take life one step at a time and so I don’t dwell on this thought but rather know that it is a possibility one day into the future. I think it is the reason why I want to enjoy every day now. My husband tends to live life as if it will go on forever but I am forever the pragmatist. I want my fun now, or as soon as humanly possible.
I’m a girl who well remembers how she felt at different times in her life. I haven’t forgotten what it was to be a shy school girl, or a girl who hungered for an experience she wondered if she would ever have. I remember the thrill of being told I was pregnant for the first time. Having a life inside me thrilled me to my core. I remember it all rather well: the good and the not so good.
Remembering my thoughts as I do, and all the possibilities of a life before me, I sometimes wonder how I could, at such a young age, have chosen the man I would marry. I know that my friends and I caution our daughters not to be in a hurry to marry, and in fact, I was cautioned, too. There is no greater decision that will change the course of our lives than to choose a partner until death us do part.
And, in amongst it all, all the changes that occur when we wed, there remains the identity of the single person. If you don’t agree, try going to a school reunion some twenty years after you graduate. You are not Mr or Mrs Blogs. You are Vess or George or the nerdy girl who did all her work. You are you; always.
From the day I married I have followed my husband; to the other side of the world, to experiences good and bad. I am still Vesta but my life that day was forever altered. When the Minister said, “...that no man shall put asunder...” those words were taken very literally. My husband needs the connection to me as strongly as any man ever needed his mate, at the same time as he insists on his autonomy; on doing everything his own way.
It is only human to wonder what might have happened to me had I waited longer to make a choice. We will never know. There are times when his behaviour unsettles me and I must find solace in my inner world: that place inside of me that stands alone.
Yet, it cannot be denied that until the moment when I reach over to find his body in my bed and intertwine it with my own that I cannot feel at one. I am Vesta but only half of a whole without him.
He completes me.
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Life imitates imagination for us both. I never saw myself with a family. I think I always wanted to be free, to bob like driftwood along the currents of life. This approach, by the way, drove my dad NUTS! But I've never regretted it, just as you've never regretted your choice.
ReplyDeleteWas it imagination, do you think or did we just KNOW???
Very interesting post on thinking of what might have been but still knowing that he completes you.
ReplyDeleteFD
Jz: I rather think that we have an internal image of what we want and we make it happen, if we possibly can. Of course, that might alter with time according to how life goes, but when young we seem to build up an image of what we want and there's not much anybody can do about that.
ReplyDeleteFD: It is always interesting to speculate on what might have been, don't you think? I tell my husband sometimes that I could have handled a more regular sort of person and he tells me that I would have hated it. So, I'll take my larger-than-life guy and simply speculate on what it might have been like to marry a professor with a penchant for reading books by the fire. Imagining hurts nobody!