Comfortable in Alone-ness

Many many moons ago, my wife made me read a Shel Silverstein book called The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.  It's a book about the importance of recognizing your own wholeness when it comes to being in relationships with other people; a very deep topic for the guy responsible for Where the Sidewalk Ends and Light in the Attic.  

I am thinking about making this book required reading for anyone who wants pre-marital counseling, or even marriage counseling. (Heck, I think it should be read by anyone who needs counseling, period!) 

It's amazing how our language around being "in love" points out how much individual wholeness we lack as people.  "I feel complete," we say.  "You make me whole," we say. "I hate being alone," we say. (On that last one I often want to ask, "Then why would anyone else want to be around you?")

The best relationships we can ever have will stem from being around people we want to be with because of who they are, not because of what they do for us.  And this is especially true in terms of wholeness.  Because I am comfortable with who I am, because I don't need anyone to complete me, I can enjoy people for who they are.

I love spending days with my soul mate and life partner, and my heart hurts when we are forced to be away from each other; I cannot imagine life without her by my side.  But she is a complete person, and so am I.   We have both endured more than our fair share of life's hard knocks, but we are still whole people.  Our need for each other is rooted in our want for each other, not the other way around. (And, by the way, the difference between the two is profound.)

Of course deep and abiding love is what makes all of this stick to the bones.  We have to learn to love even when the infatuation goes away, but that's a topic for a different time.