I’ve written before about how I basically used my own off-brand version of The Secret to manifest my last two serious, long-term relationships. This post went live four months before I started the nearly-three-year relationship that ended in April.
I’ve been trying to write the 2017 version of that post — what I’ve been calling “my most reliable form of sorcery” — since this summer, and I just can’t get there. I know what I want, and I know from experience that if I put the request out there, I will get it. But every time I open a fresh blog post draft with the intention of asking for him, I feel the inspiration drain out of me, and until recently I didn’t understand why:
What I want is someone who is equal to the best version of me. And I’m not there yet.
I want someone who will show up at my doorstep with a bouquet of wildflowers and 10 creative projects he’s been incubating. I want someone who is actively, intentionally growing and changing every day — who is conscious and present and self-aware and driven by something other than his ego. I want someone hungry who will keep me hungry. I want an eternal game of “Yes, And.”
I want to get better at being me so that I’m ready by the time he gets here. I want to be Vanderkam-ing the shit out of every 168 hours. I want to do as Flaubert said, and not as he did. I want my art to be sharper, and monetizable.
I want someone who is smarter than I am in the ways I need him to be. As good as I am at ideation, but better at execution. Committed to adventure, but never drama. Someone who says yes more than he says no, who makes me reconsider long-held opinions and frequently reconsiders his own. A man who makes me laugh so hard my face hurts at jokes that make no sense to anyone else. And the fact that he’s not here yet means I’m not ready for him.
Every day I seek out ways to grow and change, to broaden my perspective on the world, to better understand the future, to become more interesting and complex, to be a better version of the person I was yesterday, and I need to be with someone who does the same.
When I wrote the above passage, it wasn’t true, but it is now, and I am making it truer — hourly, minutely. I am hurtling toward someone who is ten steps ahead of me — who already knows the things I’m trying to learn. I am getting smarter, faster so I can fucking keep up.
Spirit for Skeptics 