Today I received what I've been asking for in the form of a letter from him. I'm not sure he said anything new, but I was able to hear him and accept what he said in a way I've never been able to do before.
Part of that shift came this week while listening to Hardwiring Happiness in the car. The author said something that really changed the game for me, which was all about the difference between wanting and liking, and how they are two totally different neural circuits, and how the wanting is associated with craving, clinging and compulsivity in a way that liking never is.
And suddenly I knew that what I have been struggling with for so long -- the intensity of the want that I have felt for the New Englander that makes me believe we must be right for each other and we should be together -- is actually just incredibly intense wanting. It isn't all the things that I need or want in a loving partnership. I've known that it wasn't, but I kept coming back to the want as evidence. Turns out, the want isn't evidence of anything healthy, so now I can just notice it, be with it, but not choose to get carried away by it as I have in the past.
Phew! What a relief! And to mark this day I leave you with The Smiths' treatise on wanting:
On the day that your mentality
catches up with your biology
I want the one I can't have
and it's driving me mad
it's written all over my face
A double-bed
and a stalwart lover, for sure
these are the riches of the poor
A double-bed
and a stalwart lover, for sure
these are the riches of the poor
A tough kid who sometimes swallows nails
raised on Prisoner's Aid
he killed a policeman when he was
thirteen
and someone that really impressed
me
it's written all over my face
On the day that your mentality
catches up with your biology
And if you ever need self-validation
just meet me in the alley by the
railway-station
it's written all over my face
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