The old adage, absence makes the heart grow fonder, really sits with me these days. This isn’t my first rodeo/ orchard season; in fact, it’s about my sixth. Yes, parenting alone is difficult (single mothers, I salute you), but it’s really just being without my other half that makes life seem less colourful.
I was raised in the age of gurrlpower! I heard the shouts of the Spice Girls, and I took the mandatory self-defence course in high school, which entailed a sweaty man, twice my age, pinning me to the ground, so that I could fight my way out from under him. Although the intentions were decent, I received many mixed messages about being female. I should look hot.I should do all things alone,and I should be careful in doing both of those together, or I’d be sorry. And lastly, needing a man would make me weak.
So it seems strange to me that I ended up here, in a place where I have a husband who I lean on openly, and who I can admit to ‘needing’. We’ve grown together as partners. We’ve created this life together…one that reflects parts of each of us, but ultimately encompasses the us we’ve become together. After all, I was born from the same dirt, rather than from his rib.
Unlike the cultural teachings of my youth, I don’t do it all myself ‘just in case it doesn’t work out’, and I like it this way. I’m no less of a powerful woman because I feel better having him by my side, because I require his help (yep, I said it), or because I have changed while standing beside him. In turn, we learn to communicate, to trust, to respect,to nurture…
beautiful things can happen in partnership…and I’ll tell you….“it’s what I want, what I really really want”
…I couldn’t help myself.
xo
Hay Mama
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