"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Anais Nin
"The choice to follow any real adventure is measured by this view: When you look back on it, will you be glad you dared, or be glad you didn't?" -- Richard Bach
*****
What is the biggest risk that you ever took for love (or what might have appeared to be "love" at the time)?
To those who have heard the following story before (perhaps more than once), I apologize. But I am getting a lot of mileage out of this story, and the more often I tell it, the less it hurts.
It was a year ago this past Friday that I met in person for the first time my long-distance penpal, a man with whom I had fallen in love solely on the basis of an 11-year correspondence. That first meeting was very short, just a few hours, and it left us both feeling as if we had been dreaming. That is, the reality of our impossible situation had not yet interfered with our fantasies.
Six months ago, we went away together on a trip that lasted for six nights and five days. Beforehand, I knew that spending that much time together would probably destroy the fantasy -- and perhaps any remaining chance of a friendship as well. And that is *exactly* what happened. After our last night together, when I left him sleeping in my own bed as I headed off to work that morning, I knew that I would never see him again.
I had learned that who he was in person was significantly different from the illusion he had worked so hard to create and maintain through his powerful writing. Yet I still desperately miss the man who wrote me those words of passion and strength, even though that man did not really exist.
Am I glad I dared? Yes. I *knew* that I could not continue for years and years without meeting him and wondering "What if?" Further, my knowledge that he was merely an illusion ("Don't look at the man behind the curtain!") gives me the freedom to pursue local, real-life relationships -- relationships that I had passed up when he owned my heart.
Denise
"The choice to follow any real adventure is measured by this view: When you look back on it, will you be glad you dared, or be glad you didn't?" -- Richard Bach
*****
What is the biggest risk that you ever took for love (or what might have appeared to be "love" at the time)?
To those who have heard the following story before (perhaps more than once), I apologize. But I am getting a lot of mileage out of this story, and the more often I tell it, the less it hurts.
It was a year ago this past Friday that I met in person for the first time my long-distance penpal, a man with whom I had fallen in love solely on the basis of an 11-year correspondence. That first meeting was very short, just a few hours, and it left us both feeling as if we had been dreaming. That is, the reality of our impossible situation had not yet interfered with our fantasies.
Six months ago, we went away together on a trip that lasted for six nights and five days. Beforehand, I knew that spending that much time together would probably destroy the fantasy -- and perhaps any remaining chance of a friendship as well. And that is *exactly* what happened. After our last night together, when I left him sleeping in my own bed as I headed off to work that morning, I knew that I would never see him again.
I had learned that who he was in person was significantly different from the illusion he had worked so hard to create and maintain through his powerful writing. Yet I still desperately miss the man who wrote me those words of passion and strength, even though that man did not really exist.
Am I glad I dared? Yes. I *knew* that I could not continue for years and years without meeting him and wondering "What if?" Further, my knowledge that he was merely an illusion ("Don't look at the man behind the curtain!") gives me the freedom to pursue local, real-life relationships -- relationships that I had passed up when he owned my heart.
Denise
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Re: Taking Risks
Wed, April 13, 2005 - 12:24 AMIt was when I told my first boyfriend I loved him. We were in bed, everything seemed so romantic and erotic and perfect--and I said it, and it all changed. He freaked out and dumped me.
I'm not sorry I said it--I think you have to spill, when you know you love someone... I just wish people who have no interest in being in love, as he later made clear, wouldn't act like they were looking for love, put up the pretense of romance. Blah.
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Re: Taking Risks
Sat, November 25, 2006 - 10:22 AMThis may sound paradoxical, but I think the biggest risk I took "for love" was leaving my ex...
What I mean by that is that I realized at some point that I could never become the "illusion" she carried around as to what she wanted the "perfect marriage" and "perfect man" to be... as long as I was present, she would be unhappily trying to "mould" me to fit her illusion (and would fail), so there was an element of greater "cosmic love" involved in letting go.
As I said, it probably sounds paradoxical, or like a bunch of hogwash...
But I'll "frame it in context" and say that I (at the time) had a chronic lack of self-esteem, and "considered myself lucky" to have a woman in my life with a PULSE... and there was nonbody else waiting, and I left the relationship fully expecting that I would be alone for the rest of my life (at 34).
That said, I think endings can often entail more risk than beginnings...
Namaste,
Peter
