Window Shopping: I promise it isn't ALL about cookies

I probably do the most window shopping when I travel. Walking around in a city I do not call home, my main focus tends to be just taking it all in. Occasionally though, there are a few moments of :"Oh hey! I've been looking for this for ages! Who knew I'd find it here?! Clearly I was supposed to wait until I came in here. Sweet."

We learn early on that everything we want, isn't good for us. Our parent's "help us" to limit our cookie consumption so we don't get sick. Of course, we didn't really come to understand that until we became older and developed perspective on how miserable little kids can be with an upset stomach--for everyone involved. We limit out of love and wisdom. 

If only this truth was as easy to swallow and apply as my Grandma Doubroff's ginger infused, sugar encrusted earthquake cookies. Mmmmm...

Part of becoming a woman is comprised of having less of a love affair with cookies, and more so with other things...other wants, other dreams, other hopes. Our love affair with cookies demands we also love our bikes, Nordic tracks and runners. 

We all know that look though, and the feeling of a "Whooo boy! Wouldn't that suit me just fine!" when we go looking at houses, cars, jobs and life changing opportunities. 

I also get that look when I watch certain man come into the room. 

There have been a few times in my life where I've let my eyes linger--when I think I will not get caught of course. They would fall upon some fellow who had either my curiosity, or captured my complete interest at the time. I would to watch his conversation, laughter and the faces of those around him. And then there are those twinkling eyes, collective endearing quirks, ability to enjoy the beauty of a sunset, intense intellect, secret romantic nature and that effortless smile too...

But, the moment that I am talking about, in regards to window shopping, is far different. 

This is the moment when you feel like you are reaching for something that 

could be described as"out of your league" or just "out of reach."

For whatever reason, we as humans are very aware of an invisible sociological hierarchy. It starts in elementary school and becomes "irrefutable truth" in high school. It is either something that we have drafted up in our imagination, or that our surrounding environment has decreed. But often, it comes out of our own admiration. This being is human after all. But our guts still get all knotted up and our hearts soar.

I've sat there, judging myself for hoping. Treating my dreams as fruitless and desolate rocks to throw myself upon. I'm certain that this is not uncommon for most. I've been burned for trying before. An experience shared with one of my best friends, who sat with me, dumbfounded, while I tried to come up with some comforting answer for both of us. I have shared the remarkable and beautiful moments of my friends as they have married, grown and changed. But when I pick up my life's case file, I tend to thumb through a less than thrilling relationship history. It takes focus to see through the dead-ends and see the transformation that has come out of each lesson, which I can proudly say, I'm getting better at.

There are moments when a man and woman look at each other and both say: "Yes, I would like to know and hold your heart. Let us make the journey together." There are also times when they look at each other and say: "From the moment I have met you, I have wished you well. But the country to which you wish to travel to...it cannot be me at your side. That one has yet to come." Don't anyone say that you can't use LOTR as a life manual. Haha. By no means does this help any of us feel better when a man says: "I can't love you the way you want.", when she does not tell you she loves you or when they take a hold of you but will not consider or converse about the future. 

You can't always have what you want, and there are often very good reasons for why. There are wants that do not actually serve us, and could end up hurting others. There are also half-hearted and heart-deceptive wants. Judging yourself though, is no way to solve the issue or the feelings at hand. Every situation we face is an opportunity to learn. Sometime we learn to jump and get in the game, and sometimes we have learn to genuinely smile from the grand stands. Time is an authority on sifting and sorting our perspectives. Not every person you love, will love you. You should not engage romantically with every person you come to love. Although there are a precious few who will become your counsel and friends as you journey towards love.

We often forget, staring into a window of a store we long to enter, that there are other stores. We get to try our hand at seeing what's inside and if it isn't the right fit, we can say thank you and keep looking. You own your own decision. 

  

I recently had someone declare that they couldn't understand why I hadn't been swept off of my feet yet. My response was to make some humorous jab at "Perhaps it is because I haven't dated a man who plays curling." (Curling...brooms...sweeping...Ha.)

The truest answer though, to the best of my human capacity is, I have not met the fellow or it isn't time yet.

I have to keep window shopping. 

Part of that journey is taking a look at the windows of our heart, mind and soul. These define and change the stores we visit, and how long we spend flipping through delightfully musty old books, discover favorite red chairs in a bistro, or tolerate sorrowfully unhelpful staff. Regardless of the experience, you always come away with experience, and that adds up over time. 

Thankfully due to my decision to take a serious look at my life over the past year and a half, I have a better understanding of what kind of cookies taste good, and which ones will make me sick--even if that is a trite summation of the real work involved.

This doesn't mean that there isn't a spectacular box of lovingly hand crafted, oven warm, rich and decadent, crunchy-on-the-outside-but-melt-in-your-mouth cookies that I walk by every so often. It just means that it is likely someone else is looking at my life's recipe and is thinking similar things, and one day, we'll be window shopping together. 

A happy thought indeed.