Regrets?

Is every man I am ever attracted to destined to be scared of commitment?

As I look around me I see so many women I know or know of going through a similar thing. The men our age are either married or committed already, or else too badly hurt to try again. I know it isn’t the case – I know there are men out there in their 40s who are willing to try again. Nobody I knows seems to be able to find them.

It is quite rare for me to be interested in someone. Am I too choosy, too fussy? I know I have no right to be – for I am nothing special. I want very much to try this experience of committed interdependence with a man I love and who loves me.

The beautiful Enreal wrote a post recently that spoke about what would we regret if we weren’t to wake up tomorrow? What would we regret about our lives?  My biggest regret if I were to die tomorrow would be to not have truly loved and been loved by another.

At this stage of my life it is something I crave. I didn’t in the past. Have I left it too late? Have I let the old beliefs and patterns settle into an established rhythm for too long? Can I break free and find that commitment I long for?

I haven’t had many men in my life but I’ve been sure of one thing – they’ve genuinely loved me to the best of their ability. But not enough to overcome their past. I’ve never been able to develop a full loving intimate relationship with any of them – for how can you when you hold back of yourself?

Outside it is a grey day painting a blue mood in my psyche. This too shall pass. I long for the experience of loving intimacy as a journey to a better me. I don’t ‘need’ it – I can be alone with myself comfortably. But I feel sometimes I’ve gone as far as I can alone and now need the lessons that being with another can bring me. To take me outside of my limited self centred point of view. To no longer be the centre of my own universe. To teach me more compassion, love and empathy and to really bring home the idea that we are all interconnected – an idea which still remains mostly academic for me. Not experiential.

So I regret not having that in my life. I regret not making the time, space and openness for it in the past. I wish to make it a part of my future.

I don’t regret many things. It isn’t helpful to have regrets unless they propel you to avoid the same mistakes again. Living is about taking a risk, a dive into the unknown. I am so willing to do that but one needs the opportunity too. In this case my risk will always involve someone else also being willing to take that risk. That makes it doubly hard to actuate.

So where are you? The man with whom I can share my life?