funny how that works.

"i thought i had good instincts, but my radar didn't extend beyond the heart."

i just read this in a vogue article about a woman who was saddled (and that's a gross understatement) with her husband's $3 million debt to the IRS following his death from pneumonia.

clearly a unique situation, and one that has probably generated a variety of opinions about relationships, identity, control, etc. i don't think anyone would argue that this woman shouldn't have asked questions about her husband's affairs (if your husband is buying a yacht and showering you with cartier, you should ask questions), but the above quote stood out to me for other reasons.

i think many of us fault ourselves for not getting it right. not seeing what we think we should have seen. the legal "known or should have known" standard. so many matters of the heart involve leaps of faith that don't always permit room for incessant questions because oftentimes there isn't an immediate answer. just your gut. sometimes your radar shouldn't extend beyond the heart. and sometimes it definitely should. i think that's the toughest part, and where judgment usually enters. it's very difficult to separate those matters that demand more cynicism from those that demand more faith. it's also difficult to separate the cynicism that stokes our fear from our emotional core where faith and trust are found. we feel and respond to fear first. it takes an extraordinary amount of work and patience to walk through our own fear in order to get to that emotional core.

i'm (perhaps obviously) speaking from a place of having emerged from extreme cynicism. conversely, the woman in the article has arrived from a place of total faith and romanticism. i think a lot of friends would characterize me as being this crazy romantic. and i am. but i'm the romantic that never believed in her own fairytale. i just liked how it sounded. i didn't trust myself, and certainly didn't trust men. more than being a romantic, i was the queen of self-sabotage. shut myself down before anyone had a chance to do so.

the academic was my first, serious leap of faith. and i fought my fears (and common sense) as much as i could to give myself a chance at something that i believed in. after him, i've learned to trust my gut more. i remember friends and logic telling me or suggesting that it was silly. but it wasn't. even after it all fell apart, i learned that my gut got it right. and the academic learned that his gut got it right. we may not have gotten the circumstances right, but we got each other right in defiance of logic. i think that's perhaps why i've been so freewheeling with the bajan. so far, my gut tells me he's okay. more than okay. that he's right for me right now. and that's enough.