Happy Cupid Day

I have spent the day today with my son, starting with him making fried eggs on toast for me in bed, and later on a 5 mile bike ride around a park. Its actually a sunny day in Seattle today. A perfect day. This idea of intuition (as I mused upon in my last post) seems to be in other realms of the blogisphere. Perhaps its cupid's influence. This morning, one of the blogs I follow Our Best Version posted about it. How do you know when you are really in love? Of course the answer is just that you know. Intuition. I have a very good male friend whom I adore very much, but with whom I am not in love. When we initially met four years ago, it felt like love. We were both so taken off guard by our connection, but gradually it turned to friendship as these things sometimes do. But every year or so, the friendship becomes something more, at least for him. We get closer, he comes into our lives more and I can't deny that it is nice. I have someone to talk to, the kids adore him, we laugh together and have deep talks. As a single mother, life is 1000x easier when there is another person in the equation. For a while we prance along in this friendship mode, until I begin to realize that for him its something much more. But I am not in love with him. I had to tell him recently that I am not “the one” for him. He deserves to be with someone who loves him. Of course he is sad and insists that I am dwelling in my loss, that I won't ever allow anyone to meet the impossible standard of my dead husband. Sometimes I wonder if that is true. Arron has very large shoes to fill, and frankly, I am not willing to compromise. Arron and I had a good fit, something I don't quite have with my friend. He reads it as not being as good as Arron, but it is really about the fit. I deserve to be loved and to love as I once did. I know it won't be exactly the same, but I think being in love is a pretty basic foundation. But perhaps my friend is right and as a result of my unwillingness to compromise on this, I cannot possibly find the love that I seek. To be sure, dating lately has been abysmal. But I can't help resenting people who tell me that I am not over Arron or that I am stuck in my loss. I am convinced that if the right person walked into my life, I would be fully present. Arron would find a tidy place in our mutual lives. The difficulty for me in a new relationship, would be to take things slow enough, really get to know the person long enough to get past infatuation and lust, and to let intuition to properly kick in so that I could recognize real love. I also talked with my sister who told me about a divorced friend of hers who insists that she cannot possibly date with children. This made more sense that the stuck-in-my-grief theory. Time is so limited. My son had a massive blowout the other night trying to convince me that Arron wasn't really dead, just lost. He is desperate to have his daddy back. And he was only 2 when Arron died and has no memory of him. He is horrified by the idea of my dating, I suspect because if I date, then the possibly of daddy coming back will be extinguished. So yea, dating with grieving kids is hairy. My essay about another man I dated a few years ago, continues to languish, because I haven't figured out the point of the essay. Holding out for real love, stuck in grief, dating with kids, and ignoring intuition are all possible conclusions. With this other guy I convinced myself that he was something he was not. I ignored my intuition in lieu of my loneliness, and the whole thing ended badly. Two years later I am still recovering, but determined not to ignore my intuition again. It has lost me a friend (for now anyway), but it is not something I will compromise again. My intuition tells me that for now, breakfast in bed and a bike ride around the park are what comprise the perfect Cupid Day.