Hugging a Cloud: Loving the Unavailable

I love a man. A man who is so “man”, he takes my breath away. Even when I so much as think about him, my insides do this instant-melty-butter thing. I lose all shape and form. I float away on a river of deliciousness. I love this man but he is not here in a body. Well, he is here, but he’s…um…in and out. He comes and goes. He’s here and not here at the same time. He’s both solidly man-ish and vapor-y illusion at the same time. I love this man deeply, wholly, and to the ends of my mitochondria. But.He.Is.A.Cloud. And, you all know what happens when you try to grab a cloud and hold on to it: You free-fall back to the dense and difficult earth. Everything in your body snaps. And, then: Nothing fits back into place. Ever. Again.

I’m not complaining. It’s a common pattern for lots of people. And, before you go all “CSI” and try to figure out who the specific man is, let me appease your curiosity by telling you that it doesn’t matter. He’s an amalgamation of an energy pattern that lots of us project and are working on in our lives. Myself included. (Obviously) He’s the overarching signal of nearly every partner/parent/sibling/friend/lover/husband with whom I’ve interacted and co-created in this existence. He’s every man and no man. He’s a template, the “messenger” of a big self-realization that I had yesterday. That’s it.

Okay, back to the cloud man; He can be pondered and sometimes touched, but only in the barest (and quickest) of ways. I can gaze upon his veneer, which is really quite lovely, but I cannot hold him. I can’t fully “lock in” with him or truly ever know him. When I try, he wiggles free, a slick fish slipping from my hands, back to the dark safety of his lake; I get just a quick peek of silver-glinting skin beneath the green and murky waters and then he’s gone, swimming away from the penetrating sun of my presence, the skull-splitting light of my words, the piercing oxygen of my intensity.

He is unavailable. Totally. Utterly. Completely. And.I.Love.Him. Of course.

When I hold this man/no-man’s image inside of me, I see amazing eyes, his depth, his wonderful soul, his “foreverness”. I see a huge heart, how he could be available, forward, and present. I see the potential for true connection, a capacity for realness, intimacy, and co-creation with him, but that’s not what I physically have with this man (except on rare occasions). What I have is an approximation; it’s a pleasing, 2-D drawing on a piece of paper. I try to extract his essence, inhale him, tug him deep, and ride our combined energy. But, it’s useless. He’s pressed flat. Closed. Bound by the tight fibers of his page.

To be sure: He’s gorgeous. He’s fascinating. His mind is compelling and brilliant. There is some fascination inside of him for me, but at bottom, he doesn’t want to be held, understood, teased apart, or “seen”. He doesn’t want to be present with me or available to me. If he wanted to, he would be. He would take action. He would show up and stand in the unwavering sunlight of our soul- and body-connection, at least once. But, he doesn’t do that. He stays remote. He comes out for the briefest of exchanges, and then he runs. Can I blame him? No. I can’t. Why?

Because…(and this is the HUGE self-realization that I just had, late yesterday): I AM UNAVAILABLE. Um. Yeah. Me. (Cue the music: dunh, dunh, dunh!)

Even with all of my words, all of the love that I beam out to others, all of my intensity and forwardness and passion and deep-feeling, I actually hold myself out, alot.  At my core. I hide. I also wriggle free and escape to the cooling, dark depths of my own lake whenever someone (anyone) gets too close or comes in too hot. I maintain a wide moat around myself that’s writhing with alligators and which no human being can penetrate, navigate, or cross. And, if they do get across, I can retreat to the castle and fire at them from behind my ancient, lichen-covered, stone facade.

True, I’m much more available than many people I know. I am often present. I can look at and process uncomfortable things with others. I can often be an adult in my relationships. I do show up. Frequently. But, what I’m talking about here is what happens deep inside of me…way down in the deepest depths of my body and psyche. I do not let people into my deepest places. I seem available (and to a point, I am), but ultimately, no one ever gets all the way in. No one gets past the dragon. No one ever makes it to my inner sanctum, which is protected by a bad-ass Viking who is so extravagantly powerful, even I cannot remove him. I’ve tried. (He thinks I’m a simpering idiot. He’s not going anywhere.)

So, this is my realization:

• You draw what you are. In other words, we draw to us what we possess inside of us. We draw behaviors from others that we share with them.
• We draw from others and the environment what we want to work on and either eliminate or elaborate.
• What we experience in life matches an energy frequency that we ourselves emanate, period. It’s a signal.
• What we send out, attracts like-energy from others and then we live our own creation.

I’m living my own creation. I draw unavailable people because at my core, I am unavailable. “Real” relationships get too much of my underbelly; they are too close, too damaging, and make me too vulnerable. I’ve been too hurt. This means that I don’t often take deeper risks with others. I stay safe. I don’t practice trusting. I don’t communicate effectively. I don’t speak my core truth. I don’t extend myself past a certain phase or point. When hurt by another, I curl inward and lick my wounds (for decades). I say nothing. I stop trying. And, if a relationship goes “south”, it’s no harm/no foul because I wasn’t fully there in the first place. I saunter away after a day or two of pain.

Up to now, it’s been easier to point to the other person and say: “Well, you are not coming forward” or “You are not present with me”, but it’s been much harder to realize that my projection actually comes from within me. It’s taken me a very long time to understand that the energy in my relationships originates with me. My reticence to be fully forward in relationship, to be completely honest in relationship, is drawing my present circumstances. There is no getting around this.

So, when faced with reluctance from others to step forward, spend time with me, and be in my company, this indicates my reluctance to step from the shadows and take risks and fully insert myself into my emotional connections with others. I now see that I am the God of this design. I am the creator of this template. I have crafted this pattern out of the horrible wounding from my past. And, I have maintained the pattern (subconsciously, of course) for my entire life.  I cannot complain about the way I’m treated if I’m offering the signal to which others are aligning and stepping forward to match. There it is. So, now. I want to own the signal. Own the responsibility.

In coming to this awareness, I realized something else. I want to heal my attachment disorder. I do. I want to be closer to other people. I want to take risks and live those risks and benefit/hurt from those risks, fully. I want to love to the ends of my cells whenever I can. I want to open my rib cage and let him in, even if it means he stomps my insides and I end up having to defend myself. I want to attract people who are ready for a solid, mesmerizing, all-encompassing journey with me into places that perhaps frighten us both, but by being there together, we become stronger individually and achieve our greatest, fastest expansion.

I want to live the intensity and fervor that I feel inside of my amazing body and let others live in my fervor, too. And, I want to feel and hold other people’s fervor. I want a real exchange. I want real truth. An honest exchange. A risky exchange. I want real people, not clouds. I’m talking about totally honest, unwavering, non-judgmental realness of two (or more) people who understand each other completely and accept each other regardless of what’s being felt and expressed.

I want to connect so deeply that no words are necessary but when we use them, they simply add to what we’re doing together. I want to look into his face and know that he owns his fear, that he’s comfortable with his fear, that he can express his fear and yet still show up for himself and still show up for me once in a while. I don’t want all of his time. I do not need to own his schedule, his soul, or even see him daily. I’m not asking for possession or servitude. I’m not asking for a forever commitment. I’m asking for an honest journey. I’m asking for someone who can process with me sometimes, traipse through the childhood darkness inside of himself sometimes, hold his own heart and mine, sometimes. But, above all, I’m asking for one who can be honest. Even if it’s ugly. Even if it hurts.

Lastly, (and few have any way of knowing this, but the following is a very BIG statement from me):  I want to drop my weapons, retire the Viking, leave the door open, wait there, and be soft for the first time in my life. I want you inside my inner sanctum. This means that I want you to conquer me, all of me, in love and light, in truth and expansion, in the delicious, rich, error-prone, full-feeling, and succulent physical. For the first time in my life, I’m ready to submit. I can’t believe it, but that’s the uncomfortable and scary truth. I’m ready. Meet me.