Relationships as Sunsets

Once upon a time I started a relationship eager to know who the other person was, delighted by the ideas and ways of thinking I came to understand. I didn't slow down to consider if behavior and statements matched and if convictions were lasting. I took what was professed as the finished thought or a long held trait. I didn’t know where the relationship was going, but I quickly figured out where I hoped it was going. Sure enough, end game; Marriage.

Correction: End game; Divorce.

That was the last relationship I started without examining, evaluating, judging. One of the glaring facts that everyone who was closely involved in the start and end of the marriage came to agree upon was that what the gentleman professed was not consistent. Not that he lied. Just that he meant something when he said it, and the belief that drove the statement he believed too: Until a new belief came and then he believed that just as much, and the attendant statement just as much. He was, to put it nicely, a weather vein clearly pointing one way until he, just as committedly as the little rooster weather vein shows the direction of the wind atop a roof, pointed another direction.

But I did not evaluate so I didn’t not understand the underlying flaw in him that led to this shifting in belief, thinking, emotion and action. And this I came to understand as my cardinal mistake. In fact, I can remember saying to my dear friend in graduate school, that the next guy I thought I wanted to marry would have to agree to take a full psychological battery (cognitive, personality… the works). If my naive acceptance of who he had professed to be had been my undoing, then my calculated assessment of the next Mr. He would be my salvation from ever having to go through hell again. (For what is Hell but the dissolution or absence of relationships… it’s enough to make fire and brimstone look appealing.

My mother says I go on tons of dates, all of them in my head. I know me pretty well. And I get to know a guy. And then I (mentally) match him and me up and voila; I take him off my list of potential Mr. He’s without him ever asking me out. My mental evaluation of potential partners has saved me many awkward dates, or worse, heartache when I get attached and then see the relationship end. Oh, I am sure that I have saved myself tons of pain.

And, I am coming to understand that I have missed out on so much that the weight of those missed experiences is starting feel painful. What experiences? The ones where I let someone teach me who he was rather than me figuring it out on my own. And it took a recent blind date to make me see it.

Enter Mr. Blind Date, or Mr. BD for short. For the record, I like blind dates; they have always been fun and enjoyable for me. I’ve never had a blind date turn into a second date. But, Mr. BD did make it to date two. And I was a mess going into that date. It took my wingman and mother combined to calm me down getting ready for that date. They both told me I needed to be in the moment, enjoy connecting with a nice fellow, and just see where the conversation, the situation, the relationship all went.

Very un-evaluative.

And I do it? Of course not. Every comment, every look, everything he didn’t say or do was stacked up and assessed in the moment or tagged and filed away to be analyzed later.

For the record, Mr. BD was a very nice guy. A thoughtful and considerate date. Aside from a snide remark about assuming he’d have to see a chick flick in letting me pick the movie we were going to see (I actually picked Captain America, which I had really been wanting to see), he was ok. But I’d pretty much decided that a romantic relationship was not likely.

My mother is great. She is Dr. No Pressure when it comes to dating and marriage. Her consistent comment is that when I tell her to pay attention to a guy, she will: Until then she’s not invested in the guy or where my relationship with him goes. (I love my mother!) So whether I went to date #3 with Mr. BD or not, she wasn’t invested.

Another reason I love my mother is that she doesn’t let me get away with anything. She doesn’t hit me with everything all at once, but when she sees a glaring problem she doesn’t avoid sharing the observation. And she had a whopper of one when I’d finished talking over Mr. BD to her.

She said I need (emphasis on neeeeeeeed) to quit evaluating. I need to quit viewing relationships as things to assess. I need to see them as sunsets. On the one hand, I analyze people… My mind doesn’t rest until I can name who they are (a la Madeline L'Engle’s idea of being able to “name” someone). And I do love sunsets… the sun setting over an ocean will hold my attention as much as any book or piece of music. And with sunsets I feel no anxiety about the colors I see, or how they fade one into the other in the moment… or in the next moment how they have faded into another shade of color. And I don’t mind when it ends: Like a Beethoven piece, I love the build up to the crescendo and then enjoy the fading of the piece because it all fits together. And the dark after the sunset or the silence after the music I enjoy too.

So I have a new thing I’m trying: To be a namer and to view relationships as sunsets. I’m not quite sure where this will bring me. But it’s ok to not see the end from the beginning. After all, do you ever see the end of the sunset… it’s colors, it’s changes from one minute to the next, it’s nature as a sunset… from it’s beginning?