It occurs to me that the likelihood is very high that I will never connect with a life partner. I’m sure I’ll have other short term partners, and even some longish term. But what are the odds of finding that person who’s experienced just the right set of life experiences, and has the knowledge, humor, and tenacity to be willing to hold my hand til the bitter end? (If I’m cooking up a dreamboat to visualize, it occurs to me here that I should probably insert “tempered, yet contagious optimism” to my list of requirements – can’t hurt.)

I found out the other day that I had my Myers Briggs profile wrong, and I’m actually INTP. Suddenly, everything clicks into place. The deep loneliness. The inability to connect. The annoyance at small talk and occasion-specific clothing. The overwhelming desire to find Truth, even without understanding exactly what Truth means. Never being able to explain myself because I skipped all the steps in the middle to get to the answer, and hell, I’m not a teacher, you figure it out. The overwhelm. Disliking arguments because if I know I’m right, I don’t want to waste time convincing you of something you should be smart enough to know. The mad scientist excitement over a hundred and one ways to create and innovate…but squirrel!

I sing out loud when I’m walking places in the city. It makes me happy, and I’m past caring about social norms. When I sing, I tell myself I’m sending out a beacon to the Universe. See me! I’m here, doing your work! But it’s really a distress call, isn’t it? See me! Don’t let me be invisible!

I’m doing my best to stay calm. It’s not that I am scared of being alone, physically. In most ways, I prefer it. I like quiet and having my own space. It helps me think. But the idea of being locked in my head forever, of never finding someone to understand me – I can’t find the words to paint the appropriate level of anguish for you here, dear reader.

I think that’s what hurts the most about the end of my last relationship. Connecting mentally and personality-wise with other humans is just not normal for me. It takes me years to move someone from the “acquaintance I spend a lot of time with” bucket to the “friend I would trust my life with” bucket. There’s no in-between collection receptacle.

It takes extraordinary circumstances to circumvent this process, but it’s happened in a few cases – most notably, on the Camino. That’s one of the reasons that trip looms so large in my life story. To go halfway across the world, expecting to be alone and stay alone, and then to meet multiple people to whom I could gladly offer my heart – that’s so far from my norm that I still can’t comprehend it fully. To quote one of the greatest musical acts of all time, it’s a kind of magic.

But I yearn for that magic in my everyday. The challenge is to find a way to reverse engineer it. Surely I am capable of whipping up some sort of recipe for success.