Passion

The last several weeks have been busy and full. The fullness has made it a good time for pushing forward, and I have been trying to do that.  The distance I've given myself from the Professor has made it easier for me to evaluate where I once was, where I am now, what I get or don't get from our relationship, and where I want to go.  Sometimes those are painful or difficult things to deal with, and sometimes they are joyful.

I was recently a part of a beautiful wedding and enjoyed the perspective of capturing unmitigated love in photos.  Those photos made obvious to me something I've been aware of but haven't really wanted to confront:  I never loved the Professor that way.  I loved him deeply and truly.  I was committed to our relationship for the rest of my life, and I would never have left him.  I believed in what we shared, and I believed in that commitment.  But some intensity, some spark, was always missing.  I could have been passionate about the Professor, and I wanted to be -- but he was never passionate about me.  It's just not who he is, or it wasn't who he was to me.  He never wanted or needed from me the way I wanted him to, the way I wanted and needed from him.  He never got it, never connected to me on that level, emotionally or physically.  I could not look into his eyes and see his soul.  I could never reach that part of him.

I thought I could live without that -- doesn't passion fade with time, anyway?  Isn't abiding friendship more important than spark -- emotional or physical?  It was more important to me, at least.  I believed that abiding friendship was what we shared, what would carry us through, what would last despite everything.  And so, I married my best friend.

Apparently, I was wrong about it carrying us through.  And now that I have more emotional distance and space, now that I have come to terms with being wrong, with being left, I realize that perhaps I was also wrong about it being enough.  I still think that it might have been enough for me, that it would have satisfied some of my most important needs, had the Professor been willing or able.  But he was neither.  And now that it's been ripped away, I'm not sure I would make the same decision again.  In fact, I doubt I would.  And while that's a sad realization, a tough thing to acknowledge, it's also something that gives me both comfort and hope.  Because I believe in passion, and I have witnessed it.