Empathic Metamorphs and Gordian Knots

I've been working on this post for a while now, as I try to untangle my relationship woes and figure out why it is that so many men say they want me, but none actually step up to the plate when I say, you can have my heart.

 It's easy to point out all my flaws and think of course no one wants me. It hurts deeper than I could probably ever express to love someone with everything you are and have them look at you and say, you aren't enough, or possibly worse, you're everything I ever wanted, but I'm going to take the safer road.

Yeah, being in a relationship with me is never going to be easy. I'm the fantasy. I'm not the one you settle with. I'm a wild flame. I can't be tamed entirely. I'm always going to challenge you. I'm always going to be passionate and adventurous and crazy around the edges, but damn, if I could just find one man willing to take the chance. One man who can see me for everything I am and decide he wants that, even if it won't be comfortable at times, or it won't be easy or it won't be popcorn in an soft chair on a Saturday night. Sometimes I wonder how many times I'll be able to offer everything that I am to someone and have them turn away from me. I worry that I'll end up alone, simply because there's no man willing to take me, no man who wants to take the chance, no man who can believe in me, in us.

I'm a summer night in Paris. I'm an exotic orchid. I'm that painting in the museum you can't stop staring at that moves your soul but you aren't sure why. I'm a wild horse from the prairie and I'm looking for the man who'll bring me home and give me a reason to let him ride me.

I had someone say to me once that I exude sex from my pores and I resisted that. It seemed like a bad thing, but the fact of the matter is, I think it's true. It's not something I do on purpose, it's something I am. People see it, smell it, sense it, but it confuses them. It complicates relationships. It scares them.

All my life I've been in a circle of men. I receive marriage proposals and indecent proposals and everything in between. Most men think they want me, but when they get close, they realize they'll be consumed by the flame and they run. How can one be so loved and desired and prized, loved by them all and never be held by one?

I was researching something recently and I came across the phrase gordian knot. I wasn't familiar with this type of knot so I googled it and found this fascinating...
A gordian knot is a knot tied by Gordius, king of Phrygia, held to be capable of being untied only by the future ruler of Asia, and cut by Alexander the Great with his sword.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm created exquisite for one man. That if everything I am, was meant for him and him alone and when he finds me, when we find each other... but I can't ever find my prince. The one who sees me, wants me, and is willing to handle me. I've had men in my life. I've been in love. I've given everything I am... but I'm always alone in that, left standing in the rain with my broken heart and my tears wondering why I'm never enough.

There is an episode of Star Trek TNG called Perfect Mate. In this episode we are introduced to a woman who is an empathic metamorph. A being that morphs into the perfect partner, sexually and otherwise for one man. Once she has, there can be no one else for her. She bonds to this man permanently.

Now in the episode, she bonds to Picard rather than the man she is intended for and she says to him, that her intended will never know he isn't bonded to her, she'll be able to give him everything he needs even without the bond, but she was bonded to Jean-Luc now and would always be.

When I first saw this episode, I was married, and something inside me broke when I heard that because I realized that I would never bond like that with the man I was married to and more, I knew I was supposed to bond with someone like that. I knew that I was created for someone, that my soul was meant to entwine with another's on every level imaginable. I grieved for that character, to be with one man, but bonded to another, but I wasn't sure what was worse, not being with the one she'd bonded with, or to be like me, and just never fulfill your purpose for creation.

There was a point in my marriage, towards the very end, where something happened to me, something inside shifted and I found my passion again. The passion that had been positively squished dead in me through the course of that marriage. I was writing again, listening to music, and aroused every second of every day. I came to a place where I was able to forgive my husband everything. Every wound, every blow dealt me through the fifteen years or so we'd been together, it was gone and I offered him a fresh start. I wasn't going to hold up barriers between us anymore and for the first time ever, I truly offered him myself, everything I was, every dream I had, every ounce of passion... it wasn't long before I realized that he would never be able to take it and he would never be able to give me back what I needed. I was that exotic orchid and he only knew how to deal with plastic flowers from the dollar store.

It wasn't long after that I left my marriage, which was the hardest decision I'd ever made to that point in my life. I was destroyed by it. My heart torn apart. The worst part was thinking that I had screwed up in my choice of a mate and now my soul would never be complete. The kind of complete it cried out for since I was a child... but most people today don't believe in that kind of love or passion or commitment or even feeling... so where does that leave me?

I remember sitting in church one day and the pastor was explaining the ludicrous nature of the idea of soul mates. He made a good argument for it and I knew my husband didn't match the criteria, so I stopped believing in soul mates that day. A little girl who'd dreamed of her wedding from the time she was three. A girl who went to sleep at night, swearing she felt him beside her. A teen who cried out for him to ease her wretched loneliness. A young woman who trusted the wrong man and wondered where the one who was supposed to protect her was. They all had to be put away. I had no use for them any longer and I've fought every single day since then not to believe there is a soul mate out there for me. I've been told how stupid it is to believe all my life, but I've been created for someone I know I have. I feel it in every cell of my body and I always have. Everything I am, was hand carved to complete someone else and everything he is, was created to do the same for me and I refuse to believe otherwise, even if that belief in and of itself scares away every man I know.

My heart aches with loneliness at times, it suffers excruciating pain thinking that it's mate will never find it, but I cannot settle for anything less ever again. So a week before my 46th birthday, I may be signing my alone forever death certificate, but I cannot pretend to be something I'm not any longer. I cannot pretend to believe something I don't and that I don't believe something I do. Yeah fine, I'm a dreamy romantic, but if I find that mate for my soul, I will guarantee you, he'll be the most satiated man on the planet, satisfied to his very soul in every way imaginable. Because what I know about me, is when I give my heart, I give all of it and when I'm in something, I fight to the death for it. I take responsibility for my baggage and I put myself out there, shoving myself out of my comfort zone again and again... I'm not perfect, I screw up, I get hurt, I can be a ginormous pain in the ass, but I will love him to the depths of my soul and in that love, we'll both heal and become more than either of us ever knew possible... and that's worth fighting for. That's worth looking for, going through the heartache for... I'm an empathic metamorph, I have to bond, it's who I am. It's what I need. And I'm sorry if it's too much or not enough, but I cannot pretend to be anything less anymore.