idealisms

whenever i write stories, they tend to revolve around relationships of sorts. notions on spirituality come into it, and plays on conventional assumptions, things and concepts i wrestle with within myself, but almost always in settings of relationships between two people. romantic relationships at that. i'm a sucker for romance - always have been... 

yet, i'm not in a relationship {unless you count the parental ones with my kids, or the working ones with my colleagues, or the few friends i have} and i can't see myself being in one any time soon either. i had three stabs at Romantic Relationships, one very short, the second mostly long-distance but quite intense, and the third lasting for almost twenty years. i dream about Something Special with certain people, fearing that what i search for is unattainable, knowing weirder things have happened, holding out for the Universe to deliver - who knows...

as i was growing up, it dawned on me that Finding Someone To Spend Your Life With was considered one of the more important things in life, more important even than Finding A Job That You Loved, or Living In A Nice Environment. it was the eighties in Holland, and  not many people i knew Traveled {like all my kids seem to find normal now} or Lived On Their Own, or aspired to find a Spiritual side to their nature. i lived in a village, had parents who were content with Normal Lives, and wanted that for their kids as well. {saying that: my dad didn't, not always... he wanted to see more of Europe, to not be a dad, do things that weren't expected of him, but back when he was young, this was only possible for the higher classes, not the well-to-do working class family he came from...} my friends all seemed to want to Settle Down... any notions i had of wanting to see more of the world, fancying both men and women, not wishing to be a mum any time soon, living on my own, were met with worry, and overruled by the fear my mum had of me being Left On The Self... genuine concerns she had, unable to see me carving out a life for myself, on my terms, settled into my subconcience, and it had taken me many years to have them disappear... 

true, hormones and a need within myself to be loved & wanted did most of the work, so i found The Relationship, had The Kids {genuinely the best thing that has happened to me}, Settled Down and was Happy. for a while. 

i thought i had the ideal relationship. for a while i was convinced that the man i shared my life with understood me, and i got him, the way nobody else seemed to get us. we had quirks that the other thought was interesting, or just fine, we seemed each other's soul mates. ultimately we wanted different things from life, and the quirks we once liked in each other were used as a stick to beat each other with... maybe that's how it works in life - in order to make sense of something that you thought you understood for many years, you have to destruct it and look at it from a cold distance. or it's a way to stop it having a hold of your heart any longer. whatever the reason, we are no longer soulmates, and are now barely friends - for the kids mainly... 

the Ideal Relationship probably doesn't exist, or maybe just for chunks of ones life, whatever the other or we ourselves need 'help' with, and when the Lesson is learnt, we let that person go, or they let us go, and life puts other people on our paths. the characters in my stories have that happen, and they accept the possibility of Working With What Is. there is no Ideal. there is just Now...