What is Partnership?
The soft spoken touch of your hand caressing my face….
Mostly, partnership has meant that I can forget the trauma I was born into. This lasts maybe a few months at most. The truth is, I am still discovering what partnership is. I get closer, and the only signal that I have is that I am so brutally honest that I am regularly uncomfortable. So I suppose that partnership indicates growth, that the spiritual growth of ourselves, and therefore, the selves of all people involved, is central to the decisions and behavior within the relationship. The truth is that I want attention, but this is not why I seek out partnership, for I can get attention in many places. I seek out partnership because I have a deep internal awareness that I cannot reach the levels of development that I desire on my own. Firstly, love is everything. Combining love with the choice to co-create life and family together is one of those shorelines of consciousness that I crave, and I seek out those that crave this as well. Partnership to me is mutual support for our life’s missions, spiritual growth, physical capacity and emotional well-being. Holding the other in as much regard as we hold ourselves. Can I exist there?
Partnership for me, and the learning process of, is more about how I show up than how someone else can show up for me. I am a perfectionist, and yet, intimacy comes from vulnerability, which requires us to release the performance of perfection. I want to show up vulnerably, I want to engage in true and deep intimacy, I want to respect my partner as if they are the best part of my life, I want to desire them erotically with every ounce of my being, and I want to maturely and gracefully dance on the shoreline of autonomy and connection. I want to feel inspired to be honest, creative and emotionally mature. I want to feel motivated to work towards shared and individual goals. I want my partner to feel so seen by me that they relax into their authentic self.
I want magic, too. But the magic of connecting with another human who sees my soul is an experience that happens with or without partnership. Partnership, true, committed and long term, is a huge undertaking. The magic will help it off of its feet, the memories will be the pink-colored glue it needs to stay together when the chaos of life starts pulling at our toes.
Written February, 2023