The Dress

This past weekend my friend took me on an adventure into the city and we visited some of his favorite shops. At one of the shops, among many wonderful things, I found a dress.

The dress is a magickal thing.  It is enchanting and enchanted.   When I put it on, I cried. 

The dress is beautiful and romantic and it makes me feel like I am twenty years old.  It makes me feel like the young woman that I was before I gave up the last vestige of hope of being a mother, of falling in love. Of finding someone who would love me, all of me, who would allow me to feel safe.

I bought the dress because I could not bear to leave it.  But when we left the shop and continued on our way, he asked me when I was going to wear it and by instinct I answered,”Never”.  And that was my intention…never to where it.  Because the part of me that loves it, that it belongs to, is a part of me I am afraid to show to anyone.

That part of me has lived in a locked box for decades until only a few weeks ago.  The box was finally broken into and the person inside has been the most difficult part of me to reconcile.  

Because she is not angry nor strong nor aggressive nor courageous.

She is weak and soft and, against all of the evidence, she still hopes for the chance to be loved, that she can be, that someone will see past the weakness and decide that she is not more trouble than she is worth. 

She still hopes to be seen as beautiful and valuable and to be wanted, for all of her softness and her weakness and her capacity to give absolutely everything that she is to someone simply because they want her and she loves them.

My friend, as he would, argued the point. And the next day, when I showed the dress to my son, who was the last great thing that the twenty-year-old me ever did, he too made the argument that I should wear the dress and that I should not be afraid to show my “weakness” or my softness, that there is no part of me that he will not love.

I wore the dress today for someone I love, who loves me.  I will wear the dress again for others whom I love and trust.  I will choose hope and love.  May my Gods be pleased with my weakness. 

So mote it be.

Winter is coming...

For the past six months or so I have been engaging with a friend whom I trust and respect.  He has been helping me to learn and to experiment and to explore my own inner desires, needs and identity.  And to find my power and to open the boxes.

The experience has been productive and enlightening as well as profoundly pleasurable and often intensely painful. 

I knew when we began this journey that he needed to maintain and respect his own boundaries.  In this case, that meant maintaining his emotional distance.   I knew that it would end, and while it has continued for longer than I originally expected, it will be ending soon.

I am grateful for the sacrifices my friend has made on my behalf.  I am grateful for the fact that our relationship will not end but rather, will continue as before.  But that fact poses another challenge for me. Because one of the many profound things that has happened during these past few months is that I have fallen in love with him.

I knew when I fell for him that I would hurt when it ended.  I knew that he could not fall in love with me.  And I made a choice.  I made the choice to allow my heart to fall, and to face the pain when it comes. 

I will admit to wishing and wanting a different ending than the one I knew would be.  I will admit to wishing that he could indeed feel the same.  But I will not regret the choice I made to love him. 

I fell in love with someone a year ago, and chose not to act upon it.  I held back for reasons that matter not even a little.  I vowed that I would not do so again.  So I cannot regret falling in love and loving this man for the time allowed to me.  Nor can I regret the pain that will result from the loss of him in my bed when the winter comes.

I do keep wanting and wishing.  I do feel the pain of the grief and the loss even now.  But I also feel the fullness in my heart of loving him.  And that is worth everything.