China: When Longing Isn’t Intimacy

This reflection actually began with a dream I had, about an old pattern of mine.

Someone from my past appeared in it, and when I woke up, I could feel that the dream wasn’t necessarily about the person themselves or about them returning to my life. It felt more like the dream was showing me an old emotional experience I needed to understand more clearly. The feeling of waiting, yearning, and hoping for closeness that never quite becomes the intimacy you desire.

Then Tori Amos’ China found its way back into my awareness.

And suddenly, the message became clearer.

Sometimes two people can care deeply about one another, even occupy the same emotional or physical space, and still feel worlds apart.

When you love someone, it can be easy to begin living inside the possibility of what the relationship could become.

Maybe when things settle down.

Maybe when they’re ready.

Maybe when circumstances change.

Maybe eventually we’ll finally meet each other in the place I keep believing is possible.

But somewhere between the dream and the song, I understood something....

Potential is not partnership, and yearning is not intimacy.

There is a difference between loving someone and continually postponing your own needs while waiting for them to become available for the kind of relationship you desire.

And perhaps one of the harder truths to accept is that something can be meaningful, loving, and real, and still not be enough for you to build your life around.

Understanding that doesn’t make the love meaningless.

It simply allows you to stop asking your present life to wait for a future that hasn’t arrived.

Sometimes our dreams, songs, conversations, or seemingly ordinary moments become breadcrumbs leading us toward an understanding we are finally ready to see.

Maybe the invitation is to ask yourself:

Am I experiencing intimacy, or am I longing for the intimacy I hope will eventually exist?

And even more importantly:

What am I actually being offered right now?

Because once we understand what is true in the present, we have the freedom to choose from there. 

With love,

Ms. B