Bursting the Attachment Bubble
It's either attachment or devotion.
In attachment, I want something specific, and I wonder, “might you be the one to give me that thing?”
In devotion, I am in love with that PERSON and all that they might want for themselves.
On the receiving end, I can tell when a man first looks in my eyes. Is he looking for something he wants to see or is he looking at what I am?
I start edging away, energetically, from a man looking for something specific in my eyes. He looks hungrily. I feel the contortions, as his body language seems to say "you might do."
I can all but hear the conclusion forming in his mind: I might be the "someone" he's been looking for "a relationship" with.
Yuck. No thank you.
I am me.
If he's not seeing me, what exactly is it that he wants "a relationship" with?
If he IS seeing me, he's not wanting a relationship with me, he's IN the relationship we already have, right here, right now.
Relationships are a lot like a bubble—they grow from the inside. There's no pulling on the outside of a bubble to make a larger bubble. There's no building a bubble. There's a delicate process of steadily funneling air into a space surrounded by a precious membrane.
It is a relational art, balancing the bubble on the wand, beginning with enough suds, knowing when the bubble is about to take flight into the air, when it's grown to its own unique size and it's time to sit and admire it until it's gone.
I don't have a goal for a bubble, and I don't have a goal for a relationship. I have a way of navigating relationships which takes different forms in different contexts; I use the same Way for romance as I use for bubbles.
