I did. And maybe you did too.
Perhaps, it's a part of youth. Perhaps, as our psyche emerges, the missing pieces and traumas reach out to be healed. We wish for a person to save us.
Once in a while, I come across a song where I hear this longing. Most often the pure expressions are from songwriters who are young. Here are two that come to mind:
'Cause you're everywhere to me
And when I close my eyes it's you I see
You're everything I know
That makes me believe
I'm not alone
(Michelle Branch, Everywhere)
Isn't anyone tryin to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Wont you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I dont know who you are
but I... I'm with you
(Avril Lavigne, I'm With You)
If you were one of those who delved into these dreams, how have they fared as you've aged and experienced life? Do any parts of them endure? Have they brought you happiness, or pain?
13 comments:
i believe as we grow up our dreams grow up with us and expectations for the soulmate grow as well... but i think i always knew what he should be like and once i happened to come across such a person, it just knew it is mine.. Cant explain, sometimes i feel it is weird, but it is simply like that.. I just know :)
Love the second song,one of my favs.
I have been a romantic since childhood,and grown up hoping "the one" would come take me away someday.It has been a painful journey because I made a mistake of falling in love with the wrong person who left me disillusioned.However,time taught me better and today I am blessed to be loved by my true soulmate,and it feels inexplicably right :)
I actually used to have a pretty clear image of the girl I'd fall in love with. She had dark hair and her name was Julie. Although I dated a brunette for a good long time, pretty much nothing of my image ever came true. But now in my forties I've found a love that captures the spirit of what I hoped for.
When younger, I had the sense of running in parallel lines with my future mate. Wishing I could lean my track to the side, and force contact. But timing is a fickle thing.
I think those dreams persist. And as long as our eyes aren't too dazzled to also acknowledge reality, I'm glad that they do. That hunger for love and understanding makes me feel my most fully human--pain and happiness included.
I have been married for 18 years to the guy whom I consider to be my soulmate. However, I didn't initially recognise that quality in him. It has emerged over time. As a kid I definitely imagined what my future partner would be like. The reality is different but just as good!
Interesting post Jason and a good question to consider. I have been married twice and as far as knowing who I'd be with (and should be with) I don't think I ever felt that way when I was young. I was just looking for fun,fun,fun in those days LOL, not contemplating life as an "old" person ie: anyone over 25 LOL.
Joe and I are so in tune with each other, on so many levels. I can't imagine not being with him so I guess in the end, I did find my soulmate. I didn't know when I met him though...that took a while. He is the kindest person I have ever met so that alone makes him very special.
It comes through loud and clear that you and Aine are also so in tune with each other. Isn't that a great place to be? And certainly not how so many people live, with their mates.
www.mypoeticpath.wordpress.com
Lena, Sameera, Charles, Sarah, Selma, Geraldine, thanks for all of your thoughts! I'm going to let other folks weigh in before sitting down with all of the comments and ruminating on them a while.
I clearly remember that when I was very young, I was quite jealous of both Arthur and Frodo, because they had Merlin and Gandalf. THAT was romance - and still is, pretty much, to me. These were people they were in awe of, but that they also trusted. These were magical people.
Briefly as a young teen I thought I'd found my Gandalf. He was a guest author at a science fiction club meeting. Edward Llewellyn. What a fascinating, lovely man! Alas, he passed way not much later. (Interesting books, by the way - post-apocalyptic with a medical theme.)
Gradually I moved to a more sexual fantasy, I guess. The same romance that I felt in, say, the Gandalf character, but with a lot less beard and a lot more... heh. Strider/Aragorn. And he became my imaginary friend, if you will, through a good chunk of my life. He's still my stand-in, in a way, when I'm developing a story. And I did feel that connection, like this person in some way had to be real and was probably thinking about me, on some other side of some other universe.
My practical, literal side scoffs at such things. But what can you do? Sometimes you just want things, even when they can't possibly be real.
Then of course, I met Luther. It was months after we fell in love that I put two and two together and realized: He's my Gandalf/Strider. He's everything I wanted in a partner/friend. He and I often refer to our lives in terms of adventure, in fact - many smaller adventures within one big one.
And maybe that's the simplest part of what I yearned for, when I was younger. Adventure. I just felt like it was something one did with a partner and mentor, and I didn't have one.
Until now.
(By the way - wow, this is a bit embarrassing to think about, LOL!!!)
Jeez... I don't recall ever feeling this way. I usually had a real person in mind when I imagined her thinking about me, wondering what I was doing...wishing she was thinking and wondering about me.
It is such a feeling songs like these conjure in me, remembering my infatuations with various girls/women in whose idle thoughts I didn't exist.
And now, suddenly, I'm imagining my next future with Michelle Branch.... YUM!
When I first saw my husband I swear I heard a loud WHOOMPF. It was like being smacked in the face with every dream of a soulmate I'd ever had. I recognised him from the place inside me where he'd imprinted years before I'd ever met him. I had dated many guys who were a sort of version of him - faint echoes of the original and they never worked out. But when I met T, I knew I'd found him. Just like I'd always known he'd existed. We just clicked.
You Do Something To Me by Paul Weller is my favourite love song. Have a listen if you have the time.
Bekbek, Farrago, and Janey, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I do see a great deal of commonality among our answers and experiences. For several, the image of their mates were not especially crystallized, but when they crossed paths with someone who felt right, unseen pieces seemed to fall into place.
When relationships erode, how often to we fall back on our old dreams? Is there a correlation between the dreams and erosion? Motivations are mysterious things. Sometimes our perfect mates are reflections of our early traumas, big and small. When those secret pressures are the fuel behind our desires, we embark on a dark road. It may take a long while to realize just how far we've gone awry.
But the lesson can never come too late. No one can ever complete us. We can only complete ourselves. Then, we can freely give the gift of support and energy to another special person.
i wish we would stop telling our children that happily ever after.. there would be so much less sense of failure were we to be brought up believing that "true love" did not exist... who knows.. maybe we would even find it were it not inculcated into us as a birthright...
Paisley, very true. It's not guaranteed, or our right. If we're going to have it, we have to take responsibility and make it happen.
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