Love and fear

It has been a wonderful summer, very free and open in so many ways. I haven't had to work so very hard==in fact I've taken a total vacation from work for the entire summer--and I haven't been encumbered by any romantic relationships, good or bad. The whole thing with J, as you know, was very distracting, but not ultimately a solid thing that I could rely on. We're not in the same place, emotionally. He's not ready for intimacy and commitment, and I really need comittment, Also, while he's a lovely person, very good and very decent, our educational background is so diverse, and our sense of the universe so different (he's a very conservative Protestant, very Republican, and I'm a Buddhist/nonconformist, very suspicious of the current administration), I don't think we could ever have made it work even if he had been interested.

But I have been spending a lot of time with my friend M, who is a feminist lawyer, very smart, who is married to a J, a playwright, whom I got to know a few years ago in a tennis class. I love her and her children--J is out of town for a month, directing a play--and her brother, T, who is a pilot.

In fact, my dear, I have fallen in love.

Okay, I know this sounds mad. It makes no sense to me. But the very first time that I ever met T, I fell for him. He takes yoga with our class, every now and then. And he is so handsome, so charming, so funny, so silly, so good with children, so loving, so amazingly talented and responsible. Yes, of course, I'm idealizing him. I've known about him for a long time--for over a year, but I also knew that he was going through a divorce, and that he needed time to recover. So I waited. I had this inkling, maybe just a fantasy, that he was the one for me. So I left him alone. But then, when I finally met him, after more than a year had passed, I found out from a mutual friend that he had a girlfriend! And I was so distraught, so devastated, I couldn't speak for hours. I couldn't talk to anyone, couldn't eat, had to go for a long walk. Ridiculous. I know. So I tried to put him out of my mind, to give up the dream. But I was so smitten. And am.

Never have I kissed a man with this kind of perfect compatibility, this kind of total love and surrender of myself. Never has anyone given himself to me so totally. I"m so afraid. I've had passionate encounters before--not quite this wonderful, but similar. And every time, I've been dropped, or abandoned, or I have left. It is terrifying. There I have said it. I am terrified.

But I am also very hopeful. He is such a good person, such an upstanding honorable man. I have so much respect for him. I know he'll do the right thing--I know he will break if off with her. But he hasn't done it yet. Am I a complete idiot? I have all this trust in him. I believe he will be good to me. Will he lose respect for me because I trust him so much? I can't believe he will. I am scared.

So, I'm sorry. I've been hanging out with the family, M and T and the M's kids. We've been biking and swimming. We've made dinner together in their wonderful kitchen. We've corralled in their living room watching movies. T and I have fallen asleep on the couch with our arms around each other. We spent last night together kissing the entire night through.

Okay. So I'm probably insane. Do you think so? I'm doubting myself. I think I'll be worried, on pins and needles, I guess, until I know that he has severed the relationship with her. I have to be patient. I know he'll do it. I don't want to push him. I'm trying to remain conscious--to say to myself, "it's like this: fear, fear, fear, anxiety, and hope, hope, hope, joy, joy, joy, and fear, fear, fear..." Trying to chart the weather system.

It's good spiritual training, I suppose. This morning, in yoga, I realized that I was very preoccupied, very "taken," occupied, by these thoughts and feelings, this longing for T, this hope for love, this joy, this excitement, this fear of abandonment, of screwing things up, of losing, again, of being alone." And I asked myself, what will help me? How do I find peace in this turbulence of emotions? What can I hold onto? God? But I don't know where God is, or what God is, if there is a God at all. I wanted there to be a god, a spiritual presence greater than everything, the sum of all being, pure goodness and love, a refuge. It is a fantasy, an ancient fantasy that our ancestors invented and passed on, through myriad variations, to us. But is there something holy and golden and true within us all, even so? Is there something alive, something that I could sail by, a beacon, a lighthouse, a steady point. Faith. Have faith in goodness, in love, in wisdom, in honor, in faithfulness itself.