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I posted this excerpt from The Little Prince (you can read it in the previous post if not familiar with the story) because it has always represented for me, relationships. The one most on my mind now is the relationship that just ended. When we first began dating 3 years ago I brought this up and asked him not to 'tame me' if he wasn't going to stay around. Over the years we seperated a couple of times because we weren't on the same page when it came to a serious relationship.

The first 10 months we continued to date other people and I stayed very ambivilant about going any further. I could see he wasn't serious and so I wasn't about to get that way. I let him go the first time when I knew that I couldn't ever find my life partner if I was so caught up with him. Wonderful guy, no commitment.

We came back together knowing we loved each other just not sure how to move forward when he still didn't want a committed relationship but I chose to give it a try 'just to see.' Well, the truth being -I loved him and wanted this picture I had in my head of what could be. So we dated the next several months growing closer and my meeting his family including his (grown) son for the first time. We all went on vacation to St. Augustine -his son and my kids including my daughter's fiance. My thinking 'oh, cool...we are moving forward as a family' and he thinking...who knows what, he dropped me cold the day we got back...and he moved forward with another for the next 5 or 6 months.

When this love came back in my life, March of this past year, I was very clear that I wanted a commited relationship. I want marriage...knowing he had always said he did not want to be married again, although this time he said he was ready. He said this is what he wanted. He loved Destin and me and it was worth moving forward for us to be together. Once again I, knowing I loved this man for the sweet, kind, generous person he is...I agreed to this new beginning. And it has been great. We have spent time talking together more than we had ever talked in the past. We had brought up differences that needed to be worked on, and we moved forward in what I thought was unison.

After spending a wonderful year -including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve together...he is done again. Just like that. Done. The only explanation? We are too different. Really? Like we didn't already know each other well enough to know the differences? Really? Like I am no different than the day we met...I am still that sweet spirit, kind person you said you loved. I still own my own company, working from home -never have been and never will be that coorporate dynamite you seem to be attracted to when you aren't dating me. So...here I am with all the hurts, dissapointments and what if's I went through last July. And seeing the side of him that isn't so sweet, compassionate and caring that he could leave in such a cold way.

So we come back to the story of taming the fox. And I had to re-read it. I asked this man not to tame me because I didn't want to be hurt. And now I have to see what was learned from this taming. What was good, what wasn't so good. What it was in the relationship I absolutely loved and what will not be tolerated in the next. And I have to move forward. Without bitterness and resentment. Without anger. Because those few little words are not who I am and not who I ever want to be. Those words do nothing but bring me somewhere I don't want to be.

I choose to live without fear of the next relationship. I choose to trust and love and give as I always have, knowing that is my true character. A relationship does not define me. What happens in that relationship does not define me. It does, however, bring me to a closer awareness of what it will be when the time is right and the relationship is right. And I have to be willing to be tamed again.
 


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