Happy New Year

It is 12:03, on January 1st.

I’m am sitting in an overstuffed chair, in a little nook, in my favorite room in my favorite hotel, overlooking the ocean.  (They don’t have wi-fi, so I don’t know when I’ll post this.)

2012.

Maybe the Mayans are right and this will be a new cycle.  I hope so.

In the last couple of days, I realized, perhaps, why I am single.

I love my dad.  There are many things about him that give me great joy.  But I cannot depend on him.  I think, to some extent, I have always felt that I have to please him for acceptance.

Long before I came on the scene, my parents had an agreement.  When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she broke that agreement.  She broke it without consulting my dad, without apology, with a fierce certainty that I was a child, and that was that.  (I should say, both my mother and I are fiercely pro-choice, but I have already made that choice for me, and I do believe that informing several men that that taking that choice out of play made them make a choice not to be with me.  But that is for another posting.)

My dad deeply resented that, and deeply resented me, until I was old enough to smile at him, and then he adored me, until I was old enough to disobey him.  (I should say, I only know this because my dad felt deeply remorseful and shared it with me in hopes it will help me work through that stuff.)  In other words, I was not loved by a man just for me, but for what I did, and I was only loved as long as I was obedient.  Which sounds an awful lot like the paradigm I have re-enacted with bdsm.

Nowadays, my dad is wonderful in many aspects.  Really extraordinary.  But he isn’t consistent.  His word doesn’t really mean much.  He will be critical of me, often out of the blue for things that I never considered (like too much eye contact--what father does that?)  He will make plans spontaneously, and when I plan around his spontaneous plans I'm hurt when he breaks them just as spontaneously.

So, while I want a partner, I somehow or other expect more than my dad could ever offer someone.

My ex asked me to marry him. Twice.  And thank god, I said no.  It took the thought of being stuck there for the rest of my life for me to get out of the situation.

I think that I yearn for all the good things my dad has to offer, but I would never settle for someone that would treat me as my dad has treated me (or as my dad has treated my mother).  With Bobby, I had this instantaneous connection.  And Bobby was inconsistent.  In my experience, he implied things he wasn’t ready to follow through on.  I don’t feel that instantaneous connection with Nate, but he is consistent and loving and, within reason, follows through on what he says (and apologizes like hell when life means he can’t do what he said he would).  And maybe that is why he doesn’t ring the part of my soul that Bobby rang.  And maybe my task for this new cycle (if the Mayans are right) is to find ways to access that part of my soul.

My favorite hotel has blank journals in every room, and guests fill out the pages.  A couple stayed in my room before me; the man wrote:

Today there is much to be thankful for: the white surf on the gray sea and an open window. 

The ring on my finger means I was married yesterday. 

I see my bride running on the beach, the hood of her coat falling back.

And I imagine that I hear the laugher of the child held within. 

I am happy.

Dear universe: please send me someone who will hold me in his heart the way that Philip held his bride. Let me meet that man this year, and let him be the kind of man who would cherish my favorite hotel, and introduce me to all his favorite spots.  Let him be introspective enough that I can share my meanderings, if not this blog, and let him be dominant enough that we can let go of the meanderings and have incredibly passionate, hot sex.  And let him be a good father to our future children and a good playmate for our inner children.

I don’t know if there is a god (well, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a personified deity; but maybe there is some force in the universe that us humans can only understand through personification), but if there is, god, I beg of you to send me a partner.  I’ve prayed it in my head for years, to no avail.  I beg of you to help me find someone to match me, tame the little animal inside and play with my child.