Curation Fail…

Ok, so I am still on this curation kick. It just makes so much sense to me. So much. Like until I realized that I was curating my life, I was just kind of lost. Didn’t ever pick the right clothes, the look, the people sometimes that I choose or allowed to be in my life, I was just living for others. Like it wasn’t my life, I was just renting myself out into your life, hoping beyond all hope that one day I would arrive in my own life.

And of course, it has been my own life all along…except it never FELT that way to me. I always felt like I was discontented in some way. Like my life was a let down and your life was so much more interesting than mine. And I believed that you knew what you were doing, whereas I was clueless.

Now I will fully own that I have failed up a lot. I have a lot of the things that a person could and would want in life: education, degrees, a career (ok, we will get to that in another blog), children, financial success, the material things that come with financial success…but the one area that has stymied more than any other is love. Well romantic love. I have a fuck ton of love in my life. On all the other levels: philia (love of friends), storge (love of parents for children), agape (love of mankind). These I have been so blessed with, so favored. I have always had all of the above. But that fucking Eros (erotic, passionate love) kind of love has been really elusive to me.

Now, right now, my sponsor is reading this and rolling her eyes and getting ready to shoot me a text to tell me to stop this blog. She would argue, correctly I might add, that it isn’t a lack of opportunity for Eros kind of love, it is a lack of be being well enough, healed enough and together enough to attract and maintain a loving eros type relationship.

But try as I might, I have failed in the curation of a passionate love relationship…repeatedly. And I am super fucking happy that I have!

Wait did I just say that?

Yes, yes I did.

If I would have found an Eros love relationship at any point before right this very fucking second, I would have fucked it up. Actually, just look at my track record…there is a literal wasteland in the Eros love department behind me. Like BIG. And sometimes it was them, and often it was me. But for whatever the cause or reason, I have landed at this place where this whole concept of curation has failed. At least in this very limited perspective.

But here is what I am learning about curation, I get to begin wherever I find myself. Right here. Like right now, sitting at Dune Coffee shop on Cota Street in Santa Barbara, I can begin again. I can start right now to curate an Eros type relationship. Well, ok, maybe I overstated that. I am sure that my developing a passionate, erotic relationship right here in front of God and all the patrons of Dune, would likely result in felony charges. And that isn’t really my thing…anymore.

But what I guess I am saying is that I can change the way I am thinking about this type of relationship and its place in my life. First I can start by owning that I want it. I am not done with men, or sex, or erotic, passionate craziness. Not by a long shot. But I can own that I have gone about it all wrong: online dating, dating men that were poor choices from the word go, refusing to see that I was not ready, grieving or just had too much on my plate are all ways that I have habitually fucked this all up. Repeatedly. For decades.

But I can change that beginning right now. I can own that I want it and my life feels like something is missing without it. And the solution to that feeling is to just sit with it. I do not need to be set up, or match made or create yet another online dating profile. I do not need to scour every single social encounter for a suitable partner. No, this would all be shit that I have tried a gazillion times! With mixed success.

But instead, what I can do is to just love this life that I have and to realize that there is nothing to do in Eros’ absence except give it a nod and get the fuck on with life and love. Eros is fickle, and tricky and never comes when you are looking for it. It is chemical and dramatic and seizes you up and grabs you by the fucking throat…well, hopefully.

Eros love isn’t really findable, it just happens. And try as I might, I cannot make it happen anymore than I can find it.

I do not know when or if I will be blessed with this kind of love. But I know that the ways I have gone about it until right now haven’t worked. So I am going to try something new…I am going to own that I want it, be wiling to work for it, and create a space in my life for it to walk in. And that is the best I have got.

What I have learned in life, in this curation process, is that if I want something badly enough, I have to become ready for it. And I would argue that I have been working on this one for the whole of my life (well most of it anyway). And all of these experiences up until right now, have helped me see that the way that I do the Eros kind of love doesn’t work. Well, at least not longer term. And that is an Erin problem. Not a guy problem.

So I am creating the space by just enjoying the life that I have right now. I am tired of thinking about Eros. It is exhausting. I am tired of asking myself questions about any guy I am mildly attracted to. I am tired of Mansbaticals. I am tired of thinking about it honestly. I have no idea whether or not this type of love is really attainable or sustainable for me. But I am willing create some space in my life, not holding it open, but allowing my mind to remain flexible, thoughtful, open. And then just get on with living this most fabulous existence that I have right now. Full of Storge, Agape and Philia kinds of love.

Sometimes, in the curation process, what we find is that the one piece, that we want to build our collection around, isn’t attainable. We can leave the hole, and keep building our collection or we can stop curating, and just be upset that the centerpiece that we want isn’t attainable, at least right now.

In curating my life, I only get to decide what I want, what I need, who feels good and who doesn’t. Who I am, how I show up. What I wear, what kind of person do I want to be. These are within my control. But making internal shit happen, making Eros a part of my life, seems to require some faith in Divinity. So I will create the space in my life for that, so that God knows that I am ready. And then I will just keep on curating myself, my life so that whether or not it ever happens really isn’t the point. The point instead becomes I created and maintained space and authenticity about Eros, owned what was true for me and then continued to do all the stuff that I need to do to live my life to the fullest. Whether or not I ever achieve the desired result.

And for now, I fly solo but with my heart open, mind willing and with a faith that love is available to all, all the kinds of love. Even for me.