Looking back

I look at a picture from the past and realize I am everything I ever wanted to be in that picture. Everything! I was doing the thing I wanted most to do and looking the way I always dreamed of looking.

This is a reality check.

I had no idea at the time that I was at that point.

I knew I was doing the thing I had always dreamed of, but it wasn't feeling the way I had dreamed it and I saw myself completely differently. I thought I was frowsy and dumpy and pretty much a failure. How could that be?

Now I realize I was with the wrong person. I was in love with someone whose life dreams were totally at odds with my own and our attempts to reconcile these differences would change the whole course of my life over the next twenty years. I'm sure they changed his too.

He wanted overtly sexy, a bit gaudy and someone one hundred percent focused on him and his needs. I wanted sophisticated, elegant, and someone to share my dreams of peace, love and lifelong learning.  I wanted to read books, write books, and discuss life with our child nestled between us taking it all in. I wanted the Family bed, absolute trust and a quiet life centered around us and close friends. Good food, good friends, good life -- can mean something totally different to different people and we were so different.

Why didn't I see that?

Because I loved him . . . at the beginning and that beginning was today May 17, 1968. Unfortunately trying to make it work pretty much destroyed everything we both loved about each other. And it certainly blinded me to the beauty I was and had.

Looking back  leaves me feeling sad.