Are You Ready For The Love You Want?
We make lists:
- A list of the qualities that qualify who our ideal partner is.
- A list of dealbreakers for a relationship we’re not even in yet.
- Lists of far-fetched dreams and unrealistic hopes.
Maybe making lists is just a human thing to do, but where’s the checklist that measures us against the near-perfect person we believe we deserve?
Do we ever stop to consider the unfairness in asking for things we cannot afford?
Do we conveniently hope for the best where we’re concerned but demand the best from someone else?
Let’s hold off on the aggressive line of questioning and talk about the heart (thoughts and emotions, not the beating organ) for a bit.
You see, when the heart is rightly motivated, it can be an overreaching piece of work.
We fall excitedly; we fall hard into the deep end.
Forget falling. No one falls into anything other than holes.
We make a choice to step in, jump in or throw ourselves in.
Sometimes, we throw ourselves into love with people who aren’t ready for our love.
We then wear ourselves out trying to get them to recognise and accept that love.
When tiredness and frustration finally set in like they always do, we begin to see that we’ve short-changed ourselves.
The reaction cycle is irritation, anger (at the seemingly wasted time), self-blame then irritation, anger, self-blame… you get the picture of misery.
If you can’t relate, “Who sent you?” is an insensitive but appropriate question that I don’t begrudge you for asking.
But let’s not focus on the misery business.
Here’s where we’re going:
It’s not up to the person who loves us to prepare us for their love.
Please, read that again.
List or no list, our expectations of other people are real.
Even when we don’t say so, we want them to (attempt to) move heaven and earth on our account.
Too much?
Maybe, but that’s not the point.
The point: There are expectations on the other side too.
Love is a two-way street and an action word, so we can’t just make a list that qualifies who ‘the one’ is and stop there.
We must make one that qualifies ourselves for this mythical perfect person for us as well.
Being ready for the love we want will mean crossing that two-way street back and forth every day for the rest of our lives.
It will mean initiating love and reciprocating it because when we’re really ready for the love we want, we’ll be willing to give love in equal measure, maybe even more.
It’ll always be about actions, never about theories, and getting there means answering more questions:
Do we love our own self?
Do we really measure up to who we say we are?
Can we meet the standards we’ve set for an ideal partner?
Are we willing to put our ego aside to make things work?
What would we most likely do if things aren’t picture-perfect anymore somewhere along the line?
The more comfortable we are with answering these uncomfortable but necessary questions about ourselves, the closer we’ll get to knowing if we’re ready for the love we want.
Being ready will mean that those aggravating lists we can’t seem to stop making finally match or at least come close enough.
Or they don’t.
Whichever way, we’d have done enough to feel right about what we’re asking for in someone else.