This Is Why I’m Waiting For A Love That Demands More

In dating, love does truly seek its own level. For ten years of my life, I missed that point. I imagined men wanted into my life so they could rise up to my offerings, so they could receive my love and have that love turn them into more.

I never contemplated what that logic said about me. I never wondered where my moreness might come from. I never put two and two together, never stood back to see how it all enfolds. That when you take in a love that plays to your ego, all that love makes you is less and less all the time.

During my depression and lethargy, I was in relationships that allowed me to stay put in my sadness, that allowed me to stay directionless in my days. I took to those men because they did not shame me about a life I did not know how to resolve, because they did not judge me for the heartache which raced through everything.

You see, when you are feeling so uncomfortable in life, you take the comfort that comes most easily to you. For me, I found that comfort in certain kinds of men and I was fortunate to have such comfort then. Truly, I was. But now I find myself dreaming of a different kind of relationship, an empowered one, a relationship that says I will not let you fall down in yourself, that says you will rise to the occasion of your life.

You. Will. Rise. Up. Right. Now.

Too often in love, we don’t shoot higher than ourselves. We don’t think that those we have any admiration for would want anything to do with us. We can’t imagine their eyes would rest on us for very long. We can’t imagine their hearts would ever invest. And so, we never end up with someone who has qualities that exceed our own, qualities we wish to emulate, that we wish to learn from.

This is why we never become more through our love. This is why our love never teases more out of us either. Because when we do not admire ourselves, we do not seek a partner who we can admire. And so, we wind up forfeiting admiration for what is comfortable. We forfeit whoever rubs against our moreness in favor of whoever will just leave it alone.

What happens is, we sleep with men who can’t even feel our pulse. We invest our lives with people who do not challenge us to see all of ourselves. And then, we call a girlfriend and ask her what she knows about heartbreak and together we try to spin a tale about how small we feel in our lives. But tales never save us from our own lies.

The truth is, we feel small because we do not believe we have it in us to be big. We don’t allow more for ourselves because we doubt the worth that is inherent to us. The truth is, our days are directionless because we continue to wait to gamble on ourselves. We continue to save ourselves for bigger love and better days because right now we couldn’t possibly give in when we are so invested in giving up.

And you know how we give up the most? We give up by not getting out.

We stay in comfortable relationships for years, never really getting beyond ourselves, never really becoming more than the person we came into the relationship as, never really rising up into that moreness but just looking out on the people who have it, who show it, who are involved in a love they admire and a life that we continue to put on hold.

For so long, I let myself love men who needed me to hold back, needed me to remain as they found me, because to become anyone more would be to threaten my commitment to them. To become more would potentially widen the scope of my dreams. It may feel impossible then to imagine how I could not be mad at these men, at the men who nailed me into the spot that they found me. But who could hate them, who could even blame them, when it was I who gave them those nails.

Today I am bored of that weakness, so bored of comfortable loves and handing over nails. Today I want a man who will insist on me regaining my strength, who will encourage me beyond myself, who will inspire me to claim a power I can’t even put to words, who will help me pour gold all over my wings. I can’t fathom what that love could feel like.

The next man I call into my bed, I want him to hear my pulse rising up from out of me and into the room. I want a man who knows there is a love song that is in me and won’t love me unless it is playing.