It all started with a cheesy self-help book.
I know, that's not what I'm supposed to willingly own up to but, there you have it: the reason behind my biggest life decision yet. A self-help book entitled "Calling in the One," which I suppose I began my journey with about this time 3 years ago.
I will say, the book served its purpose in more ways than one, but when it fell into my lap that year my intention was to soul-search, not to soul-mate. But I doubt you believe me, based on the little information I've given here, and I don't blame you.
3 years ago, I was living a very active lifestyle in New York, living with roommates, jogging to a yoga studio about a mile away in Astoria each day, singing in a little opera company and working for a giant music corporation on Madison Avenue. I was fit, young, energetic, and crabby. I was turning 30, was dating (the wrong guys) and was struggling to figure myself out - like, I guess, so many people do at 30 nowadays.
I don't know why, but I just have this feeling that 30-year-olds in the 1940s had their sh*t together, and I am sure that's what they would like me to keep on believing.
Anyway, after some particularly bitter bad dates, I dumped my woes on the sympathetic ear of one of my fellow sopranos in said opera company and I will never forget what she told me in response. She did not say "Oh poor you, your prince will come." (thank God). She didn't tell me what a jerk those guys were, and how anyone would be lucky to walk off into the sunset with me, or at least to the local brunch spot on an actual Saturday or Sunday like a boyfriend does, rather than someone only interested in "dating." No, she said to me, in all seriousness: "You have a bad picker. You choose assholes. You need to work on this."
A revelation! It was my fault! This was great news; I could fix that problem. How?
"...Before I met my guy," Sympathetic Soprano continued,".. I read this book, it sounds like a joke, but I swear it helped me find him. It's called 'Calling in the One.' Do not let the title fool you. I will send you the link tonight. You have nothing to lose by trying it out."
So, that is what I did. I tried it out. Mainly because a) I am a sucker for anything that has the potential to improve or shed light on oneself and b) I needed a project beyond "Go to Yoga every single night." And, truth be told, I wanted to know if it could work. If I would magically find my Knight with Shining Android, or whatever.
The book was admittedly nauseating if you approached it with anything less than a wide-open mind. It began by requesting the reader to meditate for 6-10 minutes or so each morning and repeating mantras along the lines of "I deserve love." Those initial chapters skimmed past my being rather unnoticed but I found myself a few chapters in burning old letters from exes or ghosts of some form or another (successfully without burning the house down - a very good omen), and listing off memories of all kinds of relationships in my life - romantic or otherwise. I began to travel backwards in time, dusting off wounds or happy memories and then shelving them in imaginary boxes - not gone, but no longer floating around to permeate the present moment and confuse me from who I had truly become. A sneaky thing began to happen as I completed the workbook: I was further away from dating anyone, actually, and suddenly extremely confident in my being. I would run to yoga and experiment with coming up with an empowering mantra for the class, just to see how it would change my work out. I began day dreaming about things I wanted to do with my life, big things - dreams I had stopped letting myself consider awhile back.
Being single was never the concern, and I can honestly say I was happy being unattached. But I was missing the person I had always been, who would journal all her big plans and wait for them to inevitably happen. I wanted to be with her again - a grown up, more capable version of her.
You know, if you've followed my blog for long enough, where this story leads: one day, while laying in savasana and desperately trying to just focus on my breathing, I decided to surrender to where my thoughts were going. I envisioned moving to Europe. I wanted to get on a plane, one-way ticket in hand, and land somewhere completely new and foreign. I wanted to expand, grow, ground myself. I wanted to see more of the world while I was only 30, unattached, and waiting for the "one" or the one after the one or the one after that - however "ones" I would encounter. I wanted to live fully, to stop fearing getting hurt and to love again. A few short months later all my bags were packed and I was on my way to Amsterdam.
Today is January 2nd, 2018. I'm visiting my family with Bruno, the Belgian football-playing, multi-lingual, kind-hearted hunk I met in Amsterdam directly after moving there, who is now my fiance. As we were organizing (read: Throwing out) things in my bedroom at my parents' house, I stumbled upon that ratty, dusty "Calling in the One"- dog-eared and scribbled in and notated and listed. As I flipped through the many pages and proverbs and paragraphs underlined twice in sharpie marker, I had to smile and read some of it to Bruno. Sometimes, the Universe delivers with two hands, even the things you aren't expecting or asking for. Maybe if I go over it all again I'll win the lottery or something -- but this time, I really think I'm good with my jackpot.
Happy New Year. Here's to all the dreams - crazy or sane, big or small- and all the many ways you choose to get you there.
