Web-Held
When there are wobbles in my romantic field, I am held by my community.
In the past this might have looked like crying jags and storying, but now it is simple presence, engagement in the activities of life.
Romance isn't dramatic these days. I no longer fight for love.
(It was never love that was asking me to fight.)
If love feels scarce romantically, I know exactly where to find love. It's living with me in my home, cooking meals for me, inviting me around the corner for kiddo time, seducing me downtown with a festival full of so many friends, hanging out on my porch when I get home.
Full.
My life is so full of love in general, and love specifically from men, that the fluctuations of love in my romantic life have little effect on my stability.
Of course, the fluctuations are happening in low-stakes relationships—new relationships are meant to be fluctuating, they are meant to fall apart early if they're going to. My loyalty is not to a feeling of loving connection, my loyalty comes online slowly, through consistent practices of loving relating. I invest in generative systems, and I do a lot of investigation before I invest.
My community helps me in this, too.
For one, I am invested here, committed and commanded to be showing up FOR something I chose, something I chose for how it serves me centering me in my own full life. When feelings of love and devotion infuse my field, I bring the energy to the systems I already know to be generative.
My community loves and supports me so that I'm not seeking somewhere to place loyalty and investment in order to exchange love. My romantic relationships can be low stakes, can move slowly, can be perfect as they show me the exact way they fit (or don't) in my life.
When my clients are suffering in rumination, when they tell me they want to "stop." I remind them: stopping isn't a thing. You have to do something else.
Where does this sacred attention belong? If you are the center of your life, where is the best place to pour the investment of your loving time, energy, and attention?