Setting Intentions

I wrote this a while ago...

All I want for Christmas in May is you. You’re tall and you’re smart and you’re funny and you’re gentle. Your hand always knows where to find my hand. You smile when I smile and you hold my gaze. Your hands can reach almost all the way around my ribcage and you lift me with ease. Your hands are rough from working with wood and playing guitar and rough-housing with our dogs.

We have dogs.

We have lots of dogs. We have a cabin. A cabin that we have renovated, you breaking walls and building furniture, me painting and crafting and decorating. Our dogs are big. Our dogs are medium. Our dogs are little. They run through the forest as we stroll, your hand always knows how to find my hand.

All I want for Christmas in May is a fireplace in our cabin in the woods. You chop wood in the daytime while I sit at my unfinished wood desk that you built for me in the sunroom and write. You chop wood and then you read, curled up on the floor with our big and medium and little dogs while I write.

In the evenings you start roaring fires while I open bottles of spicy wine and we curl up, intertwined, with our big and medium and little dogs and our arms and our legs and our bodies warm.

In the mornings I sip tea while you drink strong coffee on our porch. I wear linen and you wear denim. We jump in the lake and we swim and caress and your rough hands reach almost all the way around my ribcage and you lift me and throw me and chase me and dunk me. You kiss me.

We nap under trees and we meditate and I stretch and you lay, eyes half closed and your chest rises and falls and our big and medium and little dogs run and play and sleep and roll.

You build a barre in our living room and in the afternoons I make you sandwiches and I stretch my legs on the barre and I stretch my spine and I dance on my toes and you watch me and you smirk and you eat and you tear my leotards and you buy me new ones on days in the city.

We spend days in the city reading in coffee shops and buying old smelly clothes and drinking Kombucha and eating healthy food. I teach yoga and you sell all of the things that make your hands rough. You take me to the ballet and we ride bikes and we visit friends and we watch bands play.

We go home and you play the guitar and you play the violin and I rub your back and I nuzzle your neck and we listen to the rain and we sleep on the floor in our living room next to our roaring fire that you built.

All I want for Christmas in May is you. You’re tall and you’re smart and you’re funny and you’re gentle. Your hand always knows where to find my hand. You smile when I smile and you hold my gaze. Your hands can reach almost all the way around my ribcage as you lift me with ease. Your hands are rough from working with wood and playing guitar and rough-housing with our dogs.

In May I thought I might be ready for such a connection One year of pledging to be single had gone by, and I felt ready for a deeper connection with someone. A summer of travel later and I realize that I really have no idea how I feel about men and dating right now. I question my motives for wanting a connection: is it a truly spiritual desire of love and connection, or a selfish, insecure desire to be desired.

My only conclusion is that dating without intention seems entirely unfair to myself and the men I date. Now, intention doesn't have to mean love or commitment or marriage. Intention can totally just be fun and play and passion. But that intention has to be there and it has to be clear, otherwise, for me at least, emotions just end up completely muddled.

Now, to sort through what my intentions with men are at this point in my life...