Today, a romantic relationship appeals to me with the chance to get rid of this feeling I have.
I don’t think about romance so often, except in conversations with my mother which start with ‘how are you’ and end with marriage questions.
On most days, I don’t have the patience for the questions although I always have patience for my mother.
Romance barely appeals to me these days — except when it does.
When it does, the biggest appeal of a committed relationship is the end of this perpetual feeling that the right person might be out there. I am growing tired of that feeling.
When you are single, there’s this sense, even when you aren't looking for love, that maybe you might find it. When you go out, when you see someone attractive in the airport queue, in the coffee shop, or on the internet, there’s a chance that you might meet someone and that could be the person. Being single is full of this potential; you are constantly window shopping for love -open to it -might find it. The world is your oyster. There are many fishes in the sea.
This all eventually starts to get old. And on some days, such as this one, I don’t care so much for the potential of love. On some days, I want my oyster to be my oyster.
I was talking to my friend about this yesterday, and it made me realise something about relationships that I missed, the middle.
The middle of a relationship feels like the middle of a long run. I miss the feeling of being in the middle of a long run. It is one of my favourite feelings in the whole world.
Long runs are an intense endeavour. Starting them out with the knowledge of how far you have to go, ending them feeling fatigued by how far you’ve come. It’s really hard starting and ending a long run.
But the middle, the middle is so simple. When you are 10km into a 20km run, nothing in the world feels easier. You’ve been running for so long that you are used to the feeling of the run but you’ve not been running so long that you feel tired of it. The middle of a long run makes you feel like you can do this forever, you don’t even think of the fact that the run will end. Nothing else matters in the middle of a run except the next step. The only thing that matters is now. The end is so far away that you are in no hurry to reach it. You cannot even fathom what ending the run means.
That’s the way the middle of a relationship feels. It doesn’t feel like the world is my oyster. It feels like my oyster is my oyster. Like the only thing that matters is now.
That’s what I miss today.
