Feed Your Head & Heart
Earlier this week I posted about my first date in 2.5 years.
Well, he was late… for a perfectly valid reason: he was held up at work. He did text me an hour earlier to ask if I could delay but I’d already left home. I assured him it was no big deal. I’d brought things with me to watch the sun set and I like to go with the flow instead of getting all worked up about little things. I told him to just let me know when he was ready and I would meet him. On the inside, I felt unimportant. To me, if he knew that being late was a possibility then he should’ve scheduled for a later time, but maybe that seemed inappropriate for a first meeting. I said none of that last bit though.
Instead, I parked my chair on the beach, close to the water, and began EFT tapping and repeating my mantras “I do not chase, I attract. Whatever is meant for me will simply find me. The person I am seeking is also seeking me and now I release all blocks that stand between us. Things are always working out for me, the Universe conspires in my favor”. Over and over, I said these words with my eyes closed, and the breeze blowing in my hair. I had intermitten thoughts like “Apparently my time is not valuable” and “It would be great for my character arc if he stood me up”. So I tapped for longer and repeated the mantras a few more times.
By the time I felt that I’d redirected and reprogrammed my mind, I checked my phone to see he’d reached out to say that he was finally able to leave work. He picked me up from where I had parked near the beach to take me to get the smoothies. I found out on the date that it wasn’t necessarily a date. He wouldn’t call it a date were the words he used in response to the clerk at the smoothie shop. Admittedly, I was also a little hesitant to answer her question when she asked “Are you guys on a date?” I think I was more thrown off by the fact that she’d interrupted our conversation with this probe. It did seem very much like there was some motive behind her asking. Was she interested in him? Did she sense some awkwardness that she was hoping to call out? Honestly I felt decently comfortable and played it off with a quip, “No, actually, we are here on official duty, we just haven’t showed you our badges yet”.
Despite the rough start, the…. not date was nice. Conversation comes just as naturally to him as it does to me so we spent at least an hour talking outside the smoothie shop before we packed up to go back to the beach. We were riding along and chatting when he drove right by my car. I waited for a pause in his story to inform him that he had. It turns out he knew, he just wanted to walk on the beach and watch the sunset too. That warmed my heart to hear. Even though he didn’t consider it a date, it was looking a lot like one, still. As I write this I get a numbing sensation in my chest and in my shoulders. Why on Earth wouldn’t you call it a date? Another instance of internalized rejection programmed inside of me had been initiated, as though he’d double clicked the icon on my desktop. Unjustified shame and disgust with parts of myself and parts of my past.
When we parked and began walking, there were quite a few cars driving around in the parking lot. He jumped up on the wall that formed the perimeter of the area, and grabbed my hand to pull me up with him. I was impressed by his strength but still said something along the lines of “good thing I’m not that heavy” to which he replied “yeah I’m not that strong”. The way I’m describing our interaction is not doing it any justice. There were certainly moments in the conversation where it felt like a really sweet connection. I think I am trying to talk myself out of liking him.
So as we continued walking, he finally asked me about my interest in Astrology. This was a topic I’d been a little concerned to talk with him about because I know the optics. He added that he participated in the type of Christian faith that embraced scientific breakthroughs and of course things like Astronomy. I struggled to describe the ineffable parts of my relationship with the mandala, but I was very clear that I’m not making predictions when I look at the chart. He seemed genuinely interested and even was familiar with the hypothesis that the Star of Bethlehem was actually a conjunction of two planets. I really appreciate his curiosity and the fact that, despite him being so devoted to his faith, he’s still open to various perspectives.
In fact, it may be the thing I like about him most. He is unwavering in his love for Christ. It even had me going back to thoughts I was having last year about my relationship with Catholicism. I truly admire this man. I see a light in him and I see a standard that I’d honestly like to live up to. But I also see self-inflicted shame if I were to not be able to live up to that standard. I see myself inevitably feeling constricted by rules and then I see myself rebelling against those rules. This guy does not deserve that. He deserves a woman that is serving Christ just as he does.
As the sun began to set, the Full Moon began to rise. Several times he convinced me that lights in the sky were Venus, until we finally did actually see the beautiful evening star. By the end of the night, we were held up in standstill traffic on a two-lane road, so we continued chatting about many different things, even our previous relationships. By this time, I felt at ease with him. In fact, one of the first things I noticed about him was that my entire nervous system was calm. He has such an assured sense of self that it radiates from his very being, so much that it spreads to those around him. We made it to my car and talked a little longer before we finally agreed that it was way past bed time.
He texted me the next morning to apologize for being late and to tell me he enjoyed the evening. I did too and the interaction had me really thinking about my relationship with Christ for the rest of the day. I remember the feeling I got in my chest when I let Jesus into my heart on the top bunk of the Dogwood Cabin at Friendship Camp. The camp counselor that I told was just as elated as me. We shared a moment and I smiled at the ceiling for an hour that night before I finally drifted into the sweetest dreams all those years ago. I felt that feeling with this man, as though he was leading me back to Christ. Maybe that was the purpose of our not date. I hesitate to think that he is meant to walk me down the Path of Salvation, but I almost have no doubt that he had Divine Orders to lead me to the head of the trail.
I ended up getting a phone call for an interview the next day for a job as a Vitamin Clerk at our local Co-op! I was over the moon when I received that call; its exactly what I’ve been wanting; to get back in to the industry that I left for the corporate world. I still have my questions about why I continue to get pulled by Christianity, and what that would mean for me to be a Christian Astrologer, but I have no desire to rush God into answering those questions. I am enjoying this perfect journey, this Divine Quest for the Truth and I don’t think I will ever feel like I have the answers. But these spots of joy that are given to me make it easier and easier to believe that my participation with life opens the doors that I long to walk through.
