What on earth, you may ask, are unrequited opportunities? The phrase arose a few weeks ago in the lively little poetry
group I belong to, that meets one evening every month in my sitting room. Each time we set a new poetic theme to work
on. Put on the spot at the end of one of
our recent meetings, someone (not me!) came up with ‘unrequited opportunities’. It’s a
phrase without much obvious meaning, a bit surreal, and yet, the more I thought
about it, the more it intrigued me.
And being a therapist, naturally I had to dig a bit deeper
to see where it might have originated.
It came out so spontaneously that, as with a shard from a fast-vanishing
dream, I could feel the surge of unconscious energy pushing through. Unrequited opportunities? Hmmm.
Unrequited
Unrequited
So here’s how my train of thinking went. It started with the word ‘unrequited’. Unrequited what? Unrequited love? Definitely seemed a likely first
connection. Many thoughts and feelings
and memories of my own started to tumble about. Early ones, teenage memories – the classic period for unexpressed
yearnings, unconfident attractions, the longing to be valued, acknowledged,
admired – and the fear of not being any of these things. The need to be the hero in one’s own story. So, yes, maybe this was a good place to begin.
Opportunities
Opportunities
And opportunities. An
opportunity for romance, for friendship, for relationship, for travel, for a
special career path, for something - anything - one would have loved to do, that
was missed? An opportunity only now, after
many years, and in the light of greater maturity, fully noticed and
regretted? And suddenly creating a great
big resounding WHAT IF? A secret desire
to have another look at what might have been?
Social networking sites, apparently, are awash with people
madly trying to locate long lost relatives, friends and lovers. I’ve experienced this first hand: shortly after joining Facebook I re-connected
with my closest friend from high school and we found ourselves picking up quite
easily and happily where we’d left off decades earlier.
Understanding what's missing
Understanding what's missing
It’s only as we get properly into the second half of life,
round about the late 30s, that these ‘unrequited opportunities’ really come
back to haunt us. Sometimes, like with
my old school friend, it’s a prompt to retrace and recover something that’s
still relevant, still valuable, and worth reviving.
More often, it’s a prod to look at what’s missing and what
we need to create anew. What it might be
good to make room for in our lives.
Something of those youthful yearnings we once had pointed to
a more profound sense of who we really are - the true self – and to our deepest
needs, our passions. Maybe we’ve settled
for something less, something a bit more secure and sensible. And now, looking down the vista of years to
come, that spark of possibility, so strong in our young life, is shining again and
asking whether this time we’re open to adventure, to a new chance of relating, to following our
heart’s desire.
An admission:
I’m afraid I never wrote that poem!
But now I’ve written this instead, and it’s given me the chance to pursue
an interesting train of thought set off by a seemingly random idea – much as
one does in therapy - and at the same time reclaim an opportunity I might easily
otherwise have missed.
Petronella.
Eight of Cups from the 1910 Rider Tarot Cards (Waite-Smith Pam A). Illustration by Pamela Colman Smith. Deck from a private collection.