In yoga class earlier this week (these days where I tend to find my epiphanies) the instructor kept saying in tree pose ‘make space for your body’ ‘open up, make space’. Out of my peripheral it wasn’t just me that was struggling with this, it was the majority of the class. The looks of confusion, the strained faces, the wobbles. This of course got me thinking about how often we make space in our day to day, how uncomfortable it feels when we aren’t used to it, and more importantly how receptive we are to actually doing it. Committing to it, especially when it comes to relationships.
Making space in your life for a relationship takes work, even when it is the right relationship. Making space in the literal sense does of course come to fruition with the ever inevitable move in. When you both decide to try this whole shacking up thing. All bets are off here, regardless of how many others you’ve lived with (whether it be roommates, ex’s, family) making space for each other is a learning, a big learning. And tends to be even more so, when more time has passed since your last space share, and those of us who enjoy our space get so used to having things our own way. The longer you live alone, as a single, the greater the learning when you shift into space sharing.
We are (and I hate the term I am about to use because it is grossly over used, we need a new metaphor my friends!) creatures of habit. We like what we like, and especially in our spaces. I, being slightly OCD, like my space just so. Hey we all have our quirks. Others like their space to look like chaos, they find calmness in the randomness. Again, a matter of choice.
There have been countless articles written analysing the entire idea of living apart together (the LAT relationship), where you physically exist in the same space, however you are not necessarily sharing space. An easy feat if you have the cash and can coordinate seperate wings, servants, schedules in your humble estate.
Or maybe it is less dramatic, I know couples where one will get up 2-3 hours early than the other on weekends, just so they can have some alone time, or others that are night owls and need those hours alone at night to recharge, I’m sure those of you who are fellow introverts, or even extroverted introverts are nodding in agreement 😉
And then there is the opposite, I once dated someone very briefly who at 42 had never actually lived on their own. It had been straight from mum and dad’s to living with his now ex, and how at 42 he found himself struggling with the notion of living alone. The issue, he couldn’t come to terms with having space, and I was digging the fact that I had some.
And it isn’t gender specific, I have met women who refuse to end one relationship without another one to fall into. They fear the space, they need to reassurance, the security, and they assume they will find this as long as they don’t have to exist in solo space.
And now, present day with Beau, here we were, nearly biweekly, bidding adieu, (yet again but only temporarily) months after our chance encounter. Living in airports as part of our careers we had both become accustom to, yet now things had flipped. The work trips were not an attempt to get away from one another, but instead served as time to reflect, and maybe to be so dramatic a reinforcing of the long, in anticipation of being together once again (wow, when did I get so sappy? Do you think there is an opening as a ghost writer atDanielle Steele?).
We all struggle in making space, finding your own lagom isn’t just about the physical space sharing, we should be looking at making space in the metaphorical, or fluffy sense. This is more so about inviting that person into your life, into you as a person, your psyche, your space.
In the end, we all have our routines, or preferences, some more structured than others, but, when it comes to relationships, you have to make a decisions about how you go about inviting that person in, making space. With the goal of course to not lose yourself, so in the end we still need to be making space for the one we’ve loved all along, ourselves.
runningwiththeboys. 