Belonging

As a single person, people often ask me what I'm "looking for" in a boyfriend. Seems like an easy question but it's really not- because what I'm looking for is a feeling. I'm not looking for someone to look a certain way, be a certain height, have a certain job. I'm not looking for someone who has a certain hair color, has a certain interest, likes a certain thing. I'm not looking for someone to be anything or do anything or have anything. I'm looking for something different.

This time around, I've decided that I want to belong to someone and have them belong to me. Not in a controlling, you-can't-do-anything-without-me kind of way, but more in a do-what-you-want-because-I've-got-your-back-no-matter-what kind of way. It's like a friendship to the 10th power. When I'm with my friends I can be who I am and feel what I feel and think what I think even if it's not right or proper. With my friends I can be funny or silly or sad or scared or delighted or excited or depressed or angry. With my friends I can breathe, I can sigh, I can stop sucking in my stomach, I can relax, I can shrug my shoulders and take off my make-up. With my friends I can find the humor in the mundane and find the joy in a shared meal and find the comfort in an hour-long phone call.

In a boyfriend, I'm looking for that plus. Plus a connection, plus an attraction, plus the butterflies that you have in anticipation of seeing that person that magically disappear when they appear. Plus that sense of knowing someone loves you from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep and all the hours in between. Plus that feeling that you can be forgiven for not being perfect, that you can be accepted for not having all the answers. Plus the understanding that you may have struggled along the way and may still in the future but that you now won't be alone.

In a boyfriend I'm looking for a partner to hold my hand along the path, not to tell me what direction to go in but to stand by my side and decide together. To look at me and see me for what I am now, for what I want to be in the future, for who I was in the past. I want someone to challenge me and argue with me and agree to disagree without bitterness. I want someone who understands how fragile a heart is, how easy it is to be bruised and how much it can be opened. I want someone who is my shelter and my adventure, who is my friend and my passion, whose love belongs to me and to whom mine belongs in return; a promise to be here today and to work together toward being here tomorrow. I want someone and something that is not perfect but is perfect for me. I'm not looking for a person, I'm looking for a feeling, and I just know I will feel it. Someday.

After all, this is the life.
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