Dear Lover, I’ve decentered you…
To the man who holds my heart,
Know that you are the love of my life but I’ve also decided that I will no longer center my life around our relationship.
You’ve protected, cared for, and softened me. In turn, I want, with all my being, to grow old with you and be your forever place of respite. There’s no question about this. Yet, I know this is how it has to be. And if we truly see each other, all this will make sense to you too.
You see, my mother taught me to wait patiently for many things—to be invited on a date, for a boy to say “I love you” first, for a proposal, for my turn to have children, for my father to change, or to express a need.
Time does go quite slowly when one is waiting. Such a passive practice that keeps a person in place while watching the world pass by. Of course, there are rewards to patience and quietly allowing for pages to unfold. The anticipation of something fresh can fill one up with hope. Yet, it could very well be a foolish, self-inflicted injury. Perhaps the latter creates a darker scar so we remember how we got those more vividly.
My mother is still waiting for her husband to love and appreciate her in the way that she needs 41 years later. I realize now that being a wife and mother is too immense of a force to try and decenter. The role fulfilled her but it also drained so much out. Was it worth it? I suppose only she can answer that. I often wonder if she chose that life because she saw her purpose in it or if it was only one of the few options she was capable of imagining. Most of what she did after getting married and having children put other people, including me, in the center and her essence and brightness someplace else.
And so, in decentering romantic love, we have a chance at a different ending.
In decentering us, we can love each other with an entirely new vastness.
In decentering you, I’ve fallen in love with this life that I’ve lovingly, intentionally, and unquestioningly chosen for myself — with you in it.
My eyes can see beyond you. My hands can hold and touch far more things than what you nor I can know. Yes, I’ll still think of and wonder about your inner world but there are unlimited fascinating corners of this life for which I want to be fixated. Your ambitions inspire me yet I’m fully engrossed in exquisite solitude.
Don’t you agree that we’re so fortunate to grow together without compromise? I hope you feel the same because I will never deny you your fullest freedom. I do not want to own you nor should you need to possess me. I see you in your wholeness and I know you see mine.
With all my fullness,
Mathilda
“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
