DOWSING FOR LIGHT

You can look to others for the things you want in yourself and, when you find them, call it Love. You can find someone who mirrors what you think you are and do the same. You might build up these illusions of perfection and seek them out, settling for whomever creates the best mirage. You can find someone just as lost and ignorant as you so you’ll have company as you stumble into disappointment. You can lie to yourself and thus lie to others, let them do the same to you, until you’ve created a monster that looks nothing like the Love you were after. Or you can know yourself before even trying to know someone else and love yourself before giving it, and you’ll have a much easier time of it.

I am in love with a woman. How do I know this? That question has many answers, but I’ll give it a shot and still try to maintain a bit of brevity.

We have things in common. No, not the whole “OMG! I like music, too!” routine (though that is convenient), but things that matter more than what’s for dinner or who gets to watch what they want and who has to wait for the Tivo replay. We share a vision of our future together and the influence we’ll have on each other, through love and caring and getting the most from life together. We learn from each other, as well, not about who the other person is, but about who we are as individuals. She had taught me a tremendous amount, from being who she is and imparting her own thoughts.

We also have our differences. Sometimes I’m afraid she is the anti-me, and if I hold her hand….POOF! Total annihilation. But I love these things about her, not because I want them in me (though it wouldn’t hurt in some instances) but because they are part of what makes her who she is. These differences, along with her perceptive nature and fearless personality, challenge me in ways I’ve never been challenged before. They make me a better person, a smarter person, a more human person.

She’s my best friend. In fact, she knows more about me than the people whom I’ve known for more than half my life do. I’d go so far as to say she knows everything about me that has shaped who I am today and then some, much of which she learned when she was still just a friend. (And she still wants to marry me!) And it’s two-way street. Not only that, but I still want to know more and never settle, thinking either of us have it all figured out. Because you never really do, and that’s half the adventure. And the best part is, I’m confident much of what I’ve just written could just as easily be written by her, though far more eloquently and easier on the mind’s ear.

Then there are the simple things. The way she fits against my side when we’re sitting together. How she can silence my addled thoughts with one look. The sound of my name from her lips. The way she can make a moment, any moment, a thousands times better when she is there. How the simplest pleasures in life become exciting with the promise of sharing the experience with her.

Though I am a writer, my style and words are far to simple to capture how she has captured me. I have to be straight-forward and lose the flowery prose I may use in my fiction. It doesn’t belong here. The truth is beautiful enough for me.