My Mollie's a hunter. She wants a bug, she looks all around the yard for one. She never gives up, and she always finds one. Then she plays with it until it's dead or almost dead. Now that last part I don't want to emulate, but I do want someone to play with. Or keep...
What a lesson on perseverance. On not giving up. On having a goal and being to the point of tunnel vision, until you get it. I wish I could be like my cat. Hold up. I have my spotify on, playing random songs and Coldplay's "Fix you" starting playing right when I was typing that last line. "When you try your best but you don't succeed. When you get what you want, but not what you need. " Mollie always succeeds in getting her bug. I feel like I have the opposite success. I try and I don't succeed, in making connections with people. I know you can't force chemistry, with anyone. But even when I go in confident and positive and friendly and smiling, I still don't succeed. I wish that meeting a special person with which I can build a relationship with, in a dating and romantic capacity, was as easy as it is for Mollie to find that bug. I don't know if she's looking for a particular bug, I'm not in her head, I guess any bug will do for her. Also I never liked that second part of the line in Coldplay's song. "When you get what you want, but not what you need." I mean I get it, but I think they did it because it rhymed. Shouldn't it be "when you get what you need, but not what you want." I could argue that I need love, so this line in and of itself would be just fine. But in the literal sense I have all my "needs" met: food, clothing, water, air and a roof over my head. You don't truly need anything more. Or do you? I feel like I need that one person: to share food with, buy me clothes (or share), save water with by showering together, breathing life into me with a kiss, and sharing a house with four walls and a roof with me, living with me, enjoying and navigating the day to day life. That is the true meaning of a "life well spent."
Mollie doesn't give up on finding herself a bug. So why should I? Yet I'm over here all ready to give up on finding my "bug, " or even just a bug to play with for a little while. I can't be a hunter. It's not in my nature. I'm a nester. A gatherer. If you've seen my house you'll get that. It is a museum of my life. I surround myself with everything that represents me, that makes me happy, that defines me, that explains me. There's no question as to what I like, who I am, when you see inside my house. Yet, I am willing to give up my museum for the right person. The right girl possibly. Or guy. I'm not gonna rule anything out. It seems less likely, but anything can happen. I spent years thinking I was gonna get a puppy, and I wound up with the most adorable kitten in the world, who licks my nose exactly like a dog would do, to wake me up in the morning. So who am I to say who the right person for me is.
Sometimes in the darkest of times, I think I need a new dream. Especially since I am doing nothing currently to make my biggest dream come true. Well except existing on a dating website, but just existing currently. But like Mollie, I feel like I was made to find that bug. It would be like asking Mollie to now serve coffee at a diner or teach Spanish. This is her new dream. This is what she was created to do. And that's just silly, and impossible. Although she understands many words in English, I guess it's possible for her to learn a few in Spanish...
I was made to be a wife and mother. I've known this since I was a little girl. I was also made to be a teacher, and I already do that. I teach babies and parents every day. But when is it my turn? I know I could adopt. But I'm not going to, not by myself. I couldn't afford it on my own, nor would I hardly get to see my baby if I was always working to support it! When I was little I was focused on the babies. The cabbage patch dolls. I don't remember much about who I was married to or where they were in my play scenario. I usually sent them off to work so I could home school my babies. That seems kind of funny now, since I don't really know who I am meant to be with. It just depends on who I meet, and not just meet, but connect with. That second part feels so hard. Like near impossible. People aren't always willing to try. They want instant attraction. That's just silly. And even if I got all dolled up for you, that would not last longer than that date and maybe the rarest of dates or anniversaries. It's just not me. And I shouldn't have to change or pretend to look a certain way, like that's who I am all the time. If my hair is brushed, you should count that as a victory.
Another thing I notice about Mollie is that she doesn't settle for skimming the surface either. She doesn't just go after those bugs on the grass or flying through the air. Those are the obvious places to find bugs. Like it would be at a bar or club, for me. Sometimes those bugs she finds there are fun to play with for awhile, but she knows that if she digs down into the ground, she'll find the best ones. Her favorite ones to play with. The little garden snakes. They are the ones I freak out over and sweep out as soon as she brings them in, so let's not take that comparison too literally here. But to her those are the hardest to find and her prize capture. I know you got to dig deep to find the best ones, and that seems not only overwhelming to me, but impossible, and when you start to doubt that a person for you even exists...that there are no more garden snakes at all in the yard, or any yard for that matter...well you start to give up hope altogether. I find it incredibly hard to have any faith whatsoever that this person for me will not only find me, but that they even exist at all. I think that every one on the planet should have a love of their life. Granted I know that most will lose them in old age, and thus at that point you have to find other ways to enjoy the rest of your life without them, but at least you had them for 50 years or so! In my case I'm not old! I'm 32. Yet sometimes I feel that way. Not in the literal physical sense, but in the it's too late for me sense. I should already be married with 2 kids, a 3rd on the way. But now I feel like my only option is to have 1 at most, because if I find this person, then I'll have to have dating time, short engagement, and marriage time without kids and I don't want this to be like a year long altogether, nor do I want 3 babies in 3 years. I want a long time of just the 2 of us. But women can't have children safely into their 40s. I know in the microscopic of possibilities I could meet this person tomorrow, so I would have plenty of time. But again it goes back to faith and hope! I can't say for sure, because I've never had cancer or spoken with anyone intimately who has. But I'm pretty sure that many of them would say it was faith and hope that got them through it. That got them better, in a way. But those that didn't get better, those that died. I'm sure their loved ones would say- why didn't my prayers work? Why didn't my faith and hope for them work? And I'm sure at times the inflicted had that same hope and faith for themselves as well, that they would get better. But I delve off into murky waters with this one, so I'll stop right there with that.
Maybe because Mollie has met so many bugs, has connected with so many and gotten to play with them for awhile, maybe that's where her faith comes from. That there will always be more. Maybe I'm losing mine because it's been 7 years since I've connected with someone in the capacity I'm longing for. In a romantic, can't go a day without talking to you, want to see you and spend as much time as possible with you, sort of way. I've only caught 2 guys like that and that was so long ago I barely remember how. Oh that's right. I was just myself. And it was in college and a small group in a church setting, so much much more easy to meet someone that way. All laid out in the smallest of cubic feet (when you compare it to the entire world as my playground setting I have as my only option now). Both of those are not possible situations for me anymore.
But I think I still have some hope left. In the way way back of my mind. In the small corner of my heart. In the depths of my soul, its shadow holds it's hand out, waiting for someone to grasp it. To say wait up! I'm here. I got your hand. I've been hunting for you for so so long. I've looked everywhere. There you are. Maybe even if I'm not a hunter, my soul is. And maybe that's enough.
