Sunday, August 17, 2008

Looking for the Elusive "Her" #1: She's Independent

Her physical characteristics are vague, but that's not what's important about her. We're at a gallery opening, my gallery opening, or some similar type event. It's your typical movie scene wine and cheese affair. White walls with various pictures and paintings hanging and people milling about. Shiny wooden floor, a mix of recessed and track lighting, you can picture the place... I'm on one side of the room, having just finished talking to someone or some reporter like people but whomever they were, they were individuals who had clearly taken me away from something else I had been doing. There was a silence as they disbursed and I turned around to survey the room and find who I was looking for. There she was, across the room, straight black dress, lightly sequined/sparkly, glass of white wine cupped in her hands, talking to 2 or 3 people. I don't know what she looked like or even what color hair she had, I just remember being wildly impressed, overwhelmed even, by the air of independence she gave off. That regardless of the situation, or what was going on, or who was or wasn't there, she could hold her own and take care of things.... that I could feel comfortable letting her take care of things. I didn't feel like I had to run over and save or help her. She was fully independent, but there with me as well...

In some ways, I think it's that feeling that I'm waiting for from someone else to really allow me to let go and fall into love with them. I'm a control freak about many things and I know that. I deal with that and try (often successfully) to control it so it's not detrimental to the projects I'm working on or things I'm doing.

This past month I've been the director of a summer program(A.K.A Why I've Disappeared) and have had no choice but to let go of a lot of things I'd rather have retained control over myself. However, it was stipulated in my contract that I could only work 192 hours in a two week period, compared to the 273 I had last year. I very closely trusted the two individuals who I had working right under me making decisions in my place, and that helped a lot. But there was always that feeling where I had to be around, not over them, but around because I knew them well enough to know when they'd make decisions based upon their feelings and not the overall good of what needed to be done. That was fine and expected, I still do it too. In the end the program this year turned out more than fantastic and it was the best it's been (though, I had the added assistance of two prior years to build on and adjust from, so I can't take nearly all the credit).

That image, of 'the woman in the black dress', that's a whole other level than like it was at the program. I felt more comfortable, more trusting, more able to let go of the need to control with that 'mythical' woman. I put that word in quotes because I hope very much she's not mythical. To have that deep a trusting with someone would be exactly what I'd be looking for in a life partner to compliment me. I would need to feel that while we made a perfect pair, she could stand all on her own in the multitude of every-day settings that life throws at us. If I had to continually second guess if she could, the relationship would not last.

I've been trying for months to really figure out the kind of person I want to be with so I can either 1. look for those traits in people I meet, and/or 2. not pass over someone I already know who has them but I'm just blind to it at the moment. Figuring out what's really important to me hasn't been as easy as it sounds. "Just create your ideal woman" really is a shitty guideline to try and go by since that always seems to turn into some type of deluded sexual fantasy. So instead of that, I took the only thing I knew... that one fleeting image of whoever she was in whatever dream or imaginary world she came from and decided to start there. Hopefully, one post at a time, I'll be able to collect the personality and character of that elusive woman I keep searching for, and finally end up with a physical body to go with it.....

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