At 17 I thought I knew it all. I thought that my white knight had arrived and I was saved for all time. I also thought that it was my estimable maturity, worldly bearing, and scintillating conversation that captured the heart of the 26 year old I married that year. I could go on. My hindsight is phenomenal. For 15 years I wondered what was wrong with me–never (until the last) what is wrong with him. But you were talking about settling…
I am now married to the love of my life. He damned well better be. He is not perfect and never has been. He is a little less perfect than he used to be since the hearing loss makes him talk too loud and the prostate cancer that makes him…. Perfect is still an absolute. I am thrilled to be with Mr. Damned Good or better yet, hyphenated with Mr. Perfect-for-Me. Absolutes, like blacks and whites, often don’t hold up well in the long haul.
All this is a very long way to say that there is a difference between ’settling for’ and ’settling in.’ Sometimes, we make rules we cannot live by. Most of the time we make those rules for someone else: “I cannot love you unless (see list below).” Then we wander through life acting like Copernicus was wrong.
After the divorce, I searched for Mr. Right. I found a lot of Mr. Right-nows. It wasn’t until I put away the shopping list that I found the person I can and will live with until we are both ready for the ash heap. It’s ironic that he had been waiting for me all along.
After 40 some years this silly man still sees me as I was the first time we met. We’ve been married nearly 25 years. He was a better dad to my kids than their father was and daily he proves his love in ways that I still sometimes fail to recognize.
So here is my thought on settling:
I fell ass over aspirations for a pair of 4-inch stillettos. It was passion. They were perfect. They were the right color and oh so divine. They made my legs look two miles long. My soul longed for those shoes. My soul wanted those shoes to be THE ones. And they hurt my feet. I couldn’t walk. I would be a prisoner to those perfect shoes.
The shoes that are perfect for me are not nearly as flashy–the heel is lower, the cut more sensible. I can count on being able to be me in perfect-for-me shoes. At the end of the day, I am really happy. I just had to learn what would make me really happy.
