The Blower's Daughter

I've spent a bunch of my life judging myself or others for "needing" to be in a relationship to be happy -- for wanting that loving feeling "too much." I'm here to say I'm done with all that. Guess what, people? We're mammals. We feel better closer to each other. It's warmer, literally and figuratively. Guess what else? When the warmth goes away with the person we're married to or in a relationship with, we're going to seek it elsewhere. Can we work really hard to prevent that from happening? Sort of. We can work really hard, but sometimes we can't see what needs to happen to fix it, in ourselves or in the other person, and I think we need to cut ourselves some slack as a species and stop holding ourselves up to some cultural expectation that often involves staying in a space where the love's no longer flowing.

In the best of all possible worlds, when we find ourselves in that space, we tell our partner it's over before we put out the mating call again. But this learning how to love, both ourselves and others, well, it often involves not the best but the worst of all possible worlds -- especially when we become driven by a fear that love is scarce -- and feel we need to possess to feel secure.

As hard as I tried after I left my husband, I couldn't stand to hear about him dating other people. Until I started to let the love in from another man, and then I was suddenly cool with it. At first I judged myself for that, too. But I get it now. I was just afraid that love was scarce, that I'd given up my chance for it. Once I knew that wasn't true, I felt so much more able to let him go.

Damien Rice's haunting voice was one of the most powerful parts of a powerful movie grappling with this subject: Closer. And in this song, he arrives at the same conclusion I do here:

I can't take my mind off you

I can't take my mind...

My mind...my mind...

'Til I find somebody new