Progress, and Regress

It was lately pointed out to me that, for a woman of action, I spend an awful lot of time pondering what might be, instead of actually doing anything to bring it about.  (The boxes in the hall bear witness with their not yet installed ceiling fans and pedestal sinks.)  In many ways, my life is not so much a life, but a series of theories.

When it comes to Graples (or any job, really) I am somewhat efficient, tidy, and proactive.  My reputation has been one of a woman who can “get shit done.”  As an Operations Manager, I’ve mastered the art of problem-solving by anticipating and heading off concerns.  I direct my worries into pre-emptive strikes aimed at making my own life and experience easier.  I hate surprises.  I do whatever I have to do to avoid them, and am rarely caught off guard.

At home, I am all chaos and drama.  People enter and exit my life at random as I fail to head off red-flagged disasters-in-waiting, and situations get blown out of proportion by my own hand.  I can’t seem to get the proverbial shit done, let alone begin forward motion.  As I sit here, mountains of laundry continue to pile up while incontinent dogs ruin expensive furniture.  Cans of rapidly separating paint sit unused, and bare white (or dust-caked) walls beg for attention and care.  A sad-eyed pooch whines, begging for a trip outside.  And still I sit.

I have an almost paralyzing fear of forward motion when it comes to Life.  I live in a succession of starts and stops, determined to chase away anything that resembles commitment or progress.  Goals come into focus and then fade away.  Dreams are just that:  dreams.  They hold no connection to my reality.  Relationships are filler, a distraction from all I should be doing.  My visions for  my future are fuzzy and ever-changing.

Today I have realized that (for perhaps the first time) I have a real opportunity in front of me to begin what resembles a normal life.  It comes with perks and advantages, and doesn’t require me to give up any of my minor insanities or fuzzy visions.  It comes with love.  And it comes with commitment.  What a terrifying prospect!

All that is required for this new forward motion to occur is for me to accept it as the gift which it is.  It asks only that I stop pondering, and start moving toward something good.  It doesn’t even insist.  It merely requests.  The rest is up to me.

My practiced theory of love, up to this point, has been that it did not, and would not, belong to me.  Love was something for other people, something for me to seek, but never to find.  It was something to which I would come close, but which would always slip just outside my grasp.  I thought I needed my life to stay that way in order to create, to maintain my edge, to remain interesting.  I am today beginning to question my own methods of experimentation and measurement.  I am seeing a new opportunity, and wondering whether I should be developing a new theory entirely, one that is specific to this day and to this man.  I am wondering whether I was–wait for it–wrong all along.

Is it possible that I can truly be loved, right down to my need to run?  Could it be true that the more determined I am to push this man away, the more tightly he will hold me, the more fierce his love will grow?  I honestly don’t know.  I only know this:  if I approach him with the same attitude with which I have approached my life, there will never be progress; yet, if I approach him with the clinical “passion” with which I attack problems at work, I will be far too tempted to fix him and to ignore the love standing in front of me.

My new theory is that he must exist in his own category.  Our story must be equal parts left brain to right; equal parts friendship to romance; equal parts acceptance to challenge.  There is the potential here for a great love, in the vein of a happy novel, an epic tale.  Somehow, I must find a way to approach him with utter fearlessness…but also with eyes open to complication and concern.  Today, I am caught off guard.  Tomorrow I must have a plan to make it easier.

If anyone has a training manual for the Perfect Love, let me know.  I rock at training manuals.