Recently
Later Love
DEAR SUSAN: My mom was in her late 50s when she found love again after divorcing my dad. She used an online dating site to find it — but this was before the site you mentioned existed. It seems a fine match, and they have been married for …Read more.
A Perfect 10
DEAR SUSAN: I had to laugh at the letter from a man describing himself as a "Richard Gere" looking for a woman who is a professional, intelligent and a perfect 10. The problem might just be in his math! I've noticed that men rate …Read more.
Choose Happiness
DEAR SUSAN: This positive advice is for a fellow blogger, who seems to be having a hard time: It takes work to escape the comfort zone that keeps you making the same mistakes. (It's easier if you have the help of a good therapist, but people have …Read more.
The Uninvited
DEAR SUSAN: Your column on being left out of a couple's world has made me respond to an advice columnist for the first time in my life. The problem is much bigger than you seem to realize. When I was part of a couple, we did a lot of socializing. I …Read more.
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Core SinglenessCore singleness, the individuality that makes you deliciously one of a kind, has little to do with marital status. Its essence is within all of us, a mixture of genes and chromosomes, with a dash of subliminal impressions and choices thrown in. But whatever the scientific formula, the essential self is more than its components, blending gifts passed down from generations long gone that congeal and form the self you imagine you know, the inner sanctum so elusive. The result is a selfhood like none other, sadly usually little-known and tamped down by the issues of daily existence. But I'm here to remind you that whatever your age or stage, it's more than probable you have within a sleeping giant waiting to be awakened. And once brought back to consciousness, your life will be so much more interesting; the people you meet, the conversations they engender, the depth of your own thoughts and feelings will amaze (and delight) you and everyone whose path you cross. Living holds so much more when we take the dare to awaken the rest of ourselves, the dimension sometimes called "potential." I'm not sure that one word encapsulates this core singleness, but it's a beginning. In other words, it is the self we could be when we dare to speak up — what we are when we have the courage to add another layer to the usual selfhood we show the world. Which makes it a good time to trumpet the workout that builds muscles for the calisthenics of living, those exercises in singleness that have a tendency to show up in this column. They are designed to build the individual — not the bod — and build healthy confidence for the long haul, giving strength and clear vision, whatever the choice. The basis of the exercises is making oneself comfortable being with himself — certainly not as insular loner, but as someone who builds relationships out of choice rather than need.
I bet you're feeling more relaxed than you have in a long, long time. Chalk it up to life experience, or it could be a mellowing with age. (You, not the wine.) But my hunch is you're coming closer to yourself, your real self, the one on the path to being all you can be — or at least more than you were a while back, in those days when you were still needy for "company" and not too discriminating about who that happened to be. How many relationships, marriages, etc., are based on neediness — cloaked in loneliness and wrapped with a wilted bow that soon fades into boredom and routine when there could have been a vital, flourishing friendship with deep bonding and healthy interdependency? The give and take of healthy bonding is the Holy Grail of relationships, is it not? Two people who have developed inner resources can form a world of their own, welcoming the outside world. They stand together, tall and strong and undependent, but not in each other's shadow. Have a question for Susan? Send it to her in care of this newspaper or online at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM
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