David McElroy

I’ve been falling in love with the same woman my entire life.

She’s had different names over the years. She’s had different faces. There have even been very real differences between her incarnations. But at the core, she’s always been my latest and most mature understanding of “the Ideal Woman.”

The ideal woman doesn’t exist any more than the ideal man exists. I know that. But it’s the best phrase I have for this abstract idea. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but it’s constantly been on my mind for the last week. I need to talk about it. Maybe I’ll have a point. Maybe not.

Think about a product that goes through generations of change over years, but it’s still recognizable as the same product each time. If you compare the first iPhone from 2007 with the current model, it would seem radically different. But if you compared the first iPhone to the second, then the second to the third — and so on, including last year’s model to this year’s — you recognize the same idea and same product. But the latest is radically different from the very first.

If you compared my first Ideal Woman with my most recent, you would see differences, but the core elements — the ideal parts in each of them — are startlingly similar.

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What if you discovered something life-changing — something that could improve life for everyone — but nobody wanted to hear about it?

About 12 years ago, I discovered the germ of an idea that was astounding to me. It hit me out of the blue. It was an epiphany that I didn’t ask for and which I didn’t control. I immediately knew it was true and I knew it was important, but I couldn’t put it into words simple enough to explain it to others.

The idea was so abstract that my heart felt it more than my brain reasoned it. I knew it would change everything — for me and for others — if I could ever fully work it out. But it remains so abstract and so instinctive for me that others look at me blankly when I try to explain.

Ready? Here it is.

You do not want the real-world things you think you want.

And I don’t want the things I think I want, either. Instead, we all want — and need, require, crave, thirst for — an inner state of being which we can’t consciously understand. Our hearts know this instinctively and abstractly, but our brains completely misunderstand — and our conscious reasoning leads us astray.

Please don’t tune out. Not yet.

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I’ve paid more attention to Merlin this week than I have in a long time. I hadn’t been ignoring him before. He hasn’t done anything to require more attention. But I’ve been painfully aware that he won’t be with me forever.

I’m sitting in my bedroom floor Thursday night and Merlin is sleeping on the bed just inches from me. Lucy is in the floor next to me on my other side. (Thomas is off doing his own thing in the office.)

Molly’s death last Friday had the same effect on me that all of my cat and dog deaths have had. The pain of losing one of them reminds me to love and appreciate the ones I still have — while I still can.

Merlin has been with me for about 14 years. (I don’t remember for sure.) He was already several years old when I brought him in from the streets. When I put those together, I realize that my wise old man might not be with me too much longer — and it makes me want to appreciate whatever time he has left with me.

If you want to love and appreciate something you love — or someone you love — just remember that you can lose this cherished person or thing. There comes a time when it will be too late.

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