A friend just told me of her new relationship. That she is in love, moving in, signing a year lease on a vacation house. She informed me that despite having spent only six weeks in his company, despite him having just ended a seven year relationship just two months earlier, despite having had only a long distance relationship for months, she was in love. Because I am a logical person I wanted to tell her she wasn't thinking this thru. I wanted to tell her that in all fact she doesn't know this man well enough to be in love. She can't really even understand the depths and complications of the relationship he just removed himself from, maybe isn't totally disentangled from. Skype doesn't transmitt the smell or feel of dirty laundry left on the floor. She has no idea what the future brings, but she is willing to fall, to let go. To totally suspend disbelief to the point where it doesn't exist. This is what love requires, this magical thinking that makes you ignore the bad in someone.
The other night I went to dinner at this same womans house. This was the kind of scene one could only find in Bali. The house was oppulent and rustic at the same time. The table was piled high with freshly made balinese food. Classical music playing in the background. There was brief banter about whether the servant cooking dinner would join us at the table. This conversation and its surrounds was a stark dichotomy with the stringy haired hippy sitting in front of me. These were the kind of hippies who had money and servants and time to arrange well apointed sceances.
The dinner progressed and the conversation quickly turned to gurus. These are people who have them and believe in them. There is apparently a hugging guru. A fat lady from India who is known to hug 1000 people in a day. There is another who gives strict instructions about whom to marry and when.
Apparently what people want from these gurus is to be told what to do with thier life. Apparently if you give over control to them they will run your life completely.
I understand this need. I understand wanting someone else to take the steering wheel. To drive for awhile.
Being frozen, afraid to make choices for fear that they will be wrong. This makes everything impossibly hard. I wish I believed in hugging fat ladies as the solutions to my problems. I wish it was that simple for me.
Believing in fat hugging gurus to know more about life than you or believing the guy you just met could be your soulmate. It is all the same. It takes ignoring most of what is in from of you. It takes selectively liking and seeing only certain bits. This is a skill. One that has been honed by most people. This is how I am broken, this is the ability I lack. I am a realist. I see the messy bits, the trainwreck before it happens.
I think this is why the romantic beginings of relationships are impossible for me. I will never be able to suspend disbelief long enough to fall.
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