Bittersweet Surrender

So I was sitting in this briefing on Climate Change and health yesterday morning when all of a sudden I got hit with this tremendous wave of nausea and dizziness.

After puking my guts out a few times, I headed home, and I’ve been here ever since.

As I wrote on my Facebook status line shortly after waking up today, it is NOT what you might be thinking...unless you’re thinking I’m a candidate for a lead role in the sequel to The Immaculate Conception. Not much has changed since when I summarized my sex life last year on this blog. In short, I wrote that the UN has declared my uterus a “Sperm Free Zone,” and that designation still holds.

I was thinking about that this morning while chatting on Skype with my friend Jamila. She’s my fabulous gourmet chef/newspaper editor/road dawg girlfriend who lives in Atlanta, and she was just named “Empress of All Food and Drink” for the newpaper there. This means she gets to wear about 10 dining, entertainment and culture hats, including Food Editor, which is a dream come true for her.

Of course I always note during my early morning, before heading into the office Skype sessions with Jamila that for her, it’s about 1:30 AM. I always ask what the heck she’s doing up so late, and this time, she was sprawled in bed surrounded by 8 or 9 of the newest cookbook releases. They’re part of the sweet swag associated with being Food Editor of a major metropolitan daily. But Jamila was totally honest in remarking that while reading cookbooks brings her a great deal of pleasure, she’d be deliriously happy if one of those books suddenly morphed into a 6 foot tall stud of just about any race, creed or religious affiliation.

I could relate…up to a point. But as I shared with Jamila….and anybody else who’s inquired of late…I’ve reached that legendary zone where my pursuit of romantic entanglement has ended. Stick a fork in me…I’m done. Here’s just how done I am…the last time I had really great sex was October of 2004. Turns out it was probably just an inexpensive birthday gift from the Ambivalent Archivist I was dating at the time, who in the months prior had turned in some fairly lackluster performances. But for my birthday that year….WHOA NELLY!

Of course, 4 months later, in February of 2005, the Archivist dumped me the night before my mother died. (OUCH…that’s gotta leave a leave a scar....and it definitely did.) Anyway, he was also the last person I actually attempted to engage in any kind of intimate act with...in January of 2006. He had crawled back into my life begging for a second chance, and I figured, what the heck….I'd throw him a bone. Or let him throw me one. Anyway, after about half an hour, I sent him home. I had an early interview the next morning, and figured I’d get more out of a good night’s sleep than enduring his fervent fumblings.

My last date was in November of 2006, with a guy I’ve branded as the Lame Little Lobbyist. We met on Match.com, and I confess to agreeing to meet him because I had totally drooled over his picture. But I must also confess that when we met, I was a bit disappointed by his stature…or lack thereof. Still, after meeting him and finding him absolutely charming, I decided to beat back my prejudices about short men and give this thing a chance.

After about a month and half of what I thought were some really great dates, the little troll invited me up to his apartment to tell me that though I was really terrific, he needed to let me know that I was NOT “The One.” That experience was a traumatic reminder of being dumped in 1996 by “The Love of My Life,” the former Iowa Farm Boy turned Newspaper Editor who left me a voicemail message saying that though I was beautiful, sexy, and a fantastic lady, he just couldn’t “do two women at the same time.”

Twelve years later, I’m grateful to him for introducing Prozac into my life, but the harsh reality is that I have been inordinately unsuccessful in the relationship sector. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the reasons for this. But recently, all that pondering led me to a profound conclusion…

“Maybe you should just stop expecting to have a relationship. Maybe you should even stop hoping it will ever happen. Maybe it’s okay for you to just focus on making sure that your life has meaning.”

Granted, a lot of this conclusion stems from the final vestiges of regret over the whole childbirth and parenting thing. Even though technically I am still able to give birth….albeit in all likelihood only with a lot of costly and painful medical interventions….I realize now that I never will. Though I’m largely at peace with that, the strangest things cause me to ache when I think about it. Like today, when I was reading a Washingtonpost.com story about a 66 year old man, the father of 7 and grandfather of 24, who died rescuing his youngest son from a fall into a septic tank.

First of all, I gotta tell you, dude was one hot 66 year old, based on his photograph. He’d been married for 43 years, and his youngest son, a 20 year old with Down Syndrome, was his constant companion. I almost cried reading that story, thinking of the end of what was probably an enduring romance between him and his wife, and of that beloved son, clinging to life in a hospital with double pneumonia.

Reading those types of stories makes me conclude that as much as I’ve longed for love and connection and children in the past, maybe it’s okay that I haven’t experienced them. I mean, how much would it have to hurt to be that man’s widow right about now?

But then those brief, craven reveries pass, and I realize that woman would probably go through it all again, knowing that the same thing would happen, if she could just have her husband back. THAT’S the beauty of love and connectedness. That’s what I have never known from a relationship. And at this moment, there is no tangible proof that I will EVER know it. So, what’s left?

My ceaselessly amazing, hilarious, adventurous, sometimes sad, often fulfilling, dramatic, and I hope, meaningful life. A life worth living whether there is a man in it or not. A life that has already made a difference to numerous people, probably more than I know. And a life that can make even more of a contribution, for however much time I have left.

Now, how does one arrive at that realization when in truth, all one really wants is to have the experience of having a man want her as much as she wants him? Well, I THINK I have that figured out, at long last. And I have the book “The Power of Now” to thank for that epiphany. You see, all of the really pitiful, painful, lackluster, empty and emotionally bruising relationships in my past ARE in my past. They’re over. Now, I can assign some sort of meaning to them, as I’ve spent way too many years doing. I can conclude that they mean I’m not good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough, and that no man can ever love me. In fact, I have the option to continue doing that for the rest of my life, if I so choose.

But somewhere along the way, I guess while I was busy dealing with Life, I woke up one day and realized that all those thoughts were damned lies. I am a terrific woman. I’m just lucky I lived long enough to break through the cement tomb those lies had my encased my consciousness in.

As for the future….it doesn’t exist. It CAN exist, and I can plan for it, but of course, it doesn’t have to happen. God KNOWS I know that. So.....there’s just as much of a chance of me finding my Divine Right Partner in this mystical “future” as there is being hit by a rogue taxi in downtown Nairobi, or winning the lottery, or having an aneurysm, or eating a transcendentally delicious meal, or buying a new couch, or breaking a fingernail…..the possibilities for any of those things are equally endless and finite.

All that I truly control is now. Today. This moment. What am I doing with it? Well, at this moment, I’m lying in bed under my mosquito netting, feeling a bit better than I did yesterday morning when I was puking my brains out. I’m hoping I’ll feel well enough to go back to the office tomorrow, where I’ll be able to continue my work with journalists at the Nation.

You see, I am an accomplished, talented woman who’s achieved a lot in her life. As I’ve written before, what’s NOT to like? And if I keep living that life, there’s a chance I’ll meet someone terrific. But I’ll meet him as myself, a fully aware human being, not as an empty vessel hoping to be filled. THAT’S all I’ve really surrendered, I think…this obsessive need to be validated and completed by dating, sex, love, marriage…the whole megilla.

As I told Jamila, that’s when everybody says “it’ll happen,” when you stop looking. But you’re really healthy when even if somebody presented you with a guaranteed, Stamped by God, Buddha, or the Universe document certifying that it will NEVER happen for you, you’ll still be okay.

I think I’m almost there. At least for now. And really, that’s all there is.

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