A Vision of Love Fulfilled (Lesson 5)

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What do you want to do before you die?

And do you secretly think an intimate partnership will get in the way?

Those are the unspoken questions of Lesson 5, which is all about expanding our vision so we can receive what we most desire.

Or, as Katherine puts it, “As I was able to re-create a vision for my life that was more consistent with what I truly wanted, almost immediately my life began to open up to include those very things.”

I want a lot of things

The first part of the homework for Lesson 5 was to make a list of goals—“all of the things that are important for you to accomplish in this lifetime.”

I’m grateful to say that was an easy task for me, and even more grateful to say that a lot of what I want is already happening.

Some things I didn’t even bother putting on the list, because they’ve already come true since the past two times I tried this lesson.

(Special shout-out to “establish a career that changes lives”!)

But one item was definitely a repeat—or I guess I should say, a three-peat, because this is the third time it’s topped my list.

In 2012 I phrased it as “marry my soul mate.”

In 2016 I listed it as “get married (have a healthy marriage).”

Today I said “I want to be a wife.”

I want to be a wife

Three times through this exercise, and every time, the first thing I wrote down as a life goal was my desire to get married.

Ugh.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t want that. It sounds so, I don’t know, domestic. So small. Subservient, even.

Except, it’s not small at all. It’s maybe the biggest thing I could do, sharing myself fully on an incomparably intimate level.

So why do I feel embarrassed to desire partnership so dearly?

I think my reaction says a lot more about what I’ve absorbed from society about women and wivery than about what it really means to be in a meaningful marriage.

Because I’m not saying I want to hide behind my husband or stay home in the kitchen. (Also, I can’t believe I feel the need to clarify this.)

I’m saying I want to be a partner. Like in a business, only, in a relationship. Where we are building something wonderful, and solid, and deep and true and real.

I believe I can be a wife and everything else

I used to worry that marriage would take too much of me.

I still fear that about motherhood, but no longer about marriage. I am completely confident that with the right partner, my life will expand, not contract.

Still, Katherine’s take on this issue is well worth reviewing:

“Many of us see our desires as mutually exclusive. Either I get to have a meaningful career or I get to have love. I get to be famous or I get to have a relationship. I get to serve God or I get to have a happy family. Does your current vision of life have this either/or quality? If so, I would say that your vision is way too small.”—CITO p.38

My vision is all over the wall, or, Lesson 5 in practice

The second part of the homework was to start a collage by collecting images in alignment with our goals.

I have a vague recollection of following through with enthusiasm in 2012, the first time I attempted the “quest” of Calling In “The One.” 

The only magazines I had were old copies of Time Out New York, but I made it work.

I wanted to learn guitar, so I cut out a picture of one of those.

An image of two milk shakes—one chocolate and one vanilla—represented my love of milk shakes and my openness to interracial dating.

A photo of the Empire State Building made the cut because….I don’t know, but it looked nice.

And I guess the whole vision board concept served its purpose: I did learn to play guitar, and I did date interracially, and I did…continue to enjoy seeing the Empire State Building on a regular basis.

Still, today I had no interest in making a collage.

I did, however, have an interest in clearing off my kitchen table, which is also my workspace. And I did find an envelope full of pictures I pulled from Instagram and had printed at the drug store a month or so ago.

So, whether by coincidence or miracle, I did end up putting up some images that will inspire me as I continue this journey.

Most of them are quotes rather than photos, but whatever.

“Doubts, fears, and other people’s rules are no match for a heart on a mission.”

(That’s one of the quotes.)

Love > fear,

Christina

Want to know what happens next? Proceed to Chapter 6.

Missed what happened before? Go back to Chapter 4, or start from the beginning.