"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.”
-Jeremy Irons
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I took a trip this weekend. Got on a plane, and flew the shortest flight known to man, and didn't even panic when the houses looked like matchboxes. I left behind my reality, and for forty-eight hours, entered an alternate one. Effectively, I found a rabbit hole, and dove in. It was wonderful.
I had a long talk with a very good friend while I was in the big city, about relationships and growth and the future. I've been struggling for some time now, trying to figure out how to explain to myself, to the husband, to those who matter, what I know to be true in my heart: I love my husband, and I need more.
It sounds simple when it's just eight words.
But it's not that simple. When I say to the man who has shared my life, been a best friend, father to my children, lover, cheerleader, the one with whom I share the memories of a lifetime, "I need more." what I do not want him to hear is, "You are not enough."
Those four words sound very much like, "You have failed... you are flawed... you are disposable..." and none of those things is true. He is the anchor I've tied myself to for more than twenty years, and like Theseus finding his way back from the labyrinth of the minotaur, I will follow the string that leads me back to him. But I still long to travel, to explore and discover, other hearts, other loves.
I had the chance to share my frustrations with my friend in the city. A wonderful, caring mentor, my friend pointed out some things that I'm still rolling around in my head, still processing, still sorting. Naturally, I will spill them here, and let them run over the virutal page so I can make sense of them.
Poly = more than one. It's a concept you surely understand, if you're reading this blog, and if you've read any of it, you know I do love more than one, have loved more than one, and plan to continue loving more than one, in the most honorable and honest way possible. I found a great poem by one of my favorite brilliant-poetic-minds. It's cute and funny -- a bit childish, but he is a children's poet, after all -- and the truth is still true when you come to the last line:
"JUST ME, JUST ME"
Sweet Marie, she loves just me
(She also loves Maurice McGhee).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves Louise Dupree).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves the willow tree).
No she don't, she loves just me!
(Poor, poor fool, why can't you see
She can love others and still love thee.)
-Shel Shilverstein
I have a wonderful life, a wonderful friend to whom I am married. He is so many things to me, I cannot begin to enumerate them, and no matter what happens tomorrow, only he can share my memories and the life we've built together. Anything else would be just that... something else... someone else, but no one could take his place.
By the same token there is in me a need to escape my life once in a while, to fly away, to step through a looking glass into another world. I need something different, to journey somewhere new, to discover someone I do not know, and to find a kindred soul that sparks when I draw near. It makes sense that my husband cannot be both someone different and new, and also the secure, strong anchor at the end of my ball of string. He cannot be both my big city adventure and my journey home.
And so, now my task is to explain to him, and help him understand. Just because I need more, doesn't mean I don't need him, exactly as he is. I hope it makes sense.
Keep your feet, Travelers!
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