Seven of Cups

What a joy it is to 'be in love' when you are able to keep your idealization of a loved one in proportion to who that person really is.

Too often, I think, people forget that they need to be careful not to burden their relationships with too much projection, as if absolutely everything should be possible with this certain person by their side. Many people believe that meeting that 'right person' means that all their needs will be met, almost magically. And, so they wait and wait for the 'right' person -- in a stupor of perfectionism.

Why distract the focus of a union with a preconceived set of ideas you thought up long before this person crossed your path? Discover the other in his or her reality. Then spin your dreams for the relationship together -- in the present moment -- and they will have more of a chance of coming true in the future.

And so I learn and forget and learn and forget again. And I offer a whispered little prayer of thanks for those who have stood firm through all my moments of blindness. To those whose images I have allowed to flicker through form after form of my imagining, during times of my forgetting.