Date with Wisdom

things I’ve figured out so far this month

So, I had a date with a younger guy this month, someone I’d connected with a while ago, and while we both felt something, we weren’t sure what. We’d made one date that got postponed, but then happened. This whole thing of dating makes me nervous, it’s so fraught with cultural and personal expectations, most of them not reality based, that it’s amazing that people even hook up at all, right?

And I will admit, to date someone younger pushed a lot of my fear buttons. Fear of getting old, fear of looking old, fear of being a fool. Fear of either being too attractive, or not attractive enough, or not attractive in the right way. Fear of facing my own wants and desires and the fear of not knowing exactly how the whole rest of my life will turn out. The unknown. Admitting the unknown in a culture that thinks it can quantify the future. Well, to this I say, “Hah!”

The evening went well, even when he pretended not to be surprised at my age, even when he shared with me he was looking for someone to start a family with. Obviously, not me, was what he was trying to say. And in between I read, “Someone with whom I believe I can quantify the future with. Make it as predictable as possible based on what I want, and believing this can and will happen.” I of course, was disappointed, trying not to take it personally, in spite of his, well, being too young. I enjoyed his company.

The good I took away from this, however, was as I talked with my daughters and friends, all only wished good for me. I was given permission to date who I will, my desire for companionship and one day love, was honored as something good and to be encouraged. It was my own fear of admitting that I did want and need a relationship that I believed somehow diminished me. I had to face my own unwillingness to admit that I was finding too much of my identity in autonomy, of being alone.

What I also took from this, is that I realized that I am looking for someone with imagination, someone who can do a risk/benefit analysis of life while integrating their imagination. Since some of the things I’m pretty sure I’m looking for are: kindness, intellectual prowess, being emotionally connected to self and others, curiosity, a found passion in and for life (I guess it is kind of a long list); I can now add to the list, having imagination, and well, OK, a great smile, which of course, would show all of the above.

I also found that I am not immune to bumping up into still more darkness inside of myself. I sometimes acknowledged to myself that I was scared of aging, and worried about how much I depended on looking young to be charming; how it was reassuring to look in the mirror and look pretty much the same day after day. Just recently, however, I smiled at myself in the mirror and exclaimed to my daughter, “I’ve got laugh lines around my eyes.” I liked them, at first, but then, it was the word wrinkles that trickled into my brain and consciousness, as in “old now.”

It is a lesson to love myself, my wrinkles, my 52 year old body that is not quite as glowing, but is hopefully more graceful in the acceptance of gravity, the same gravity that keeps me centered and sane. The same gravity that grounds me in the present, so that I can be here for my own family, in a way that younger parents can’t be. I don’t give up on loving myself more in the passing years, and I hold out this wisdom to my now grown children, continuing to give to them increasing love for themselves and others. I’m lucky to have children, and wrinkles and any wisdom at all.

So what else? I’ve found that we have different ways of being our most authentic self. We have our intellectual self, we have our emotional self, we have our embodied self, we have our sexual self and we have our imagined self, and of course, we have our shadow self. Who leads in our relationships? The intellectual self or the sexual self? The confident self or the scared self? We get to decide if we are connected enough to our shadow self. If we are not, our shadow self leads, with it’s own agenda. That’s when we get to repeat the same mistakes, over and over, and well, we all know how dull that is. (Sort of the antithesis of wisdom.)

We also get to decide how much each of these selves wants to show up, and how much we want to be connected to someone else through these selves. If our child self chooses in relationship, how is this going to work as we hopefully grow up? If our intellectual self chooses a mate, and our adventurous self kicks in, will we stay or leave?

One more thing. Honoring the holy in each other. How do we do that? I’ve found that if I enter into any relationship, I can choose to see the holy or the unholy. I can choose to take the gift that this person has to offer, or I can look in disdain and walk away. It’s not them, it’s me. It’s me choosing compassion, and if that person is not as self-aware as I would hope them to be, to offer understanding, and to take what, in their holiness, they do have to offer.

It’s a stand of hoping to offer to others whatever is the best in me, to them, for the taking; knowing that I am not diminished by what I give, but enriched by the opportunity, every day, to encounter the holy in others. Seeing my own face with laugh lines in the mirror, reflecting back my own holiness. Compassion for self, compassion for others, love enough for each day, still holding out hope for companionship and commitment, should it come my way. Still looking, still listening to the Moody Blues, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.