Lately I've not been the lonely one. But as I was down at Santa Monica and Third Street Promenade, I could feel the desperation sinking in, the intense feeling of vastness within my soul. Something I have not felt much these last 2 months. As Peter and Clara sleep on the other side of the room, I begin to wonder what's become of me. What, if anything, that I am missing. I suppose I am not prepared for the emotional burden and responsibility of a relationship, and so I hold out for someone as independent and not so needy as would be convenient. It seems I hold out for the impossible, and then when opportunity might present itself, I dont want to answer the door.
Simplicity would be nice.
Things were so much easier in the naivety of my late high school and early college years. It was not so long ago, but so much has changed since then. I've been thinking much of my high school years, of the school and the environment and the people I associated with, my limited outlook on life. Things were so simple then, my life was so prescribed, pre-scripted. Those years I blissfully enjoyed. I had no other idea, no other thought of what and who I would become. Some days I wish to go back, to live an existence without conviction, without passion, without a mind and soul that had learned to stand on its own. Yet, how interesting would it to go back to the time that I turned 17, with the mind that I have now. How quickly and abrasively things would change. I would turn on everyone, in a way, I feel I have transcended my teachers, my mentors, those who I held in esteem. Yet, I think that is the point of being a guide for someone younger. If one never outgrows them, you are their slave, not their student. You become a carbon copy of ideals and life patterns that are in no way in harmony with your true self. Unfortunately that is what I was, and that is what is most repulsive about my remembrances upon those years of dependent and starving youth.
No doubt those years were fun, I was never fully at peace with all that was said and all that went on around me, but I had no idea how to see it differently, no idea how to see around it. I suppose that is what has alienated me most from those I knew, those that were close. I know its not popular among those peers to voice the what is inconvenient, what shatters the shattered image of something labeled "the will of God." But it is so with me.
Dont ever get F#@king married, dont think about it, dont talk about it, dont sing about it, dont think about talking about it, dont sing about talking about thinking about it.
and what of my relationship during those times? I don't know that I dare write of it. I suppose it is the same feeling. The feeling of knowing that during that time, because of where I was and who I was, it was great, or so I thought. Had I only the insight into my heart as I have now, the ability to see through people better, things would have been much different, and because they are not, and it can never be so, I am left open ended and frustrated with my naive shallow and superficial choices. It is the view of what could have been that bothers me these days. The knowing that what has been done is set in stone and is still affecting my life until this day. Making it so very difficult to ever love again, because I have found that I have no idea in Hell what that really is. That I could so easily be replaced in a matter of 3 months has caused much mistrust and bitterness to grow. Truly my perception of it is better, but far from finished, and seemingly farther than ever from having a chance again.
This is a confession to my high school associates, to those who can't accept that people move out, move on, change, shape shift. That I will not defend something that I know is fundamentally wrong and unnatural. A man with a mind is a dangerous thing. I hope that you can in some way understand without refuting with preconceived notions of what we were once taught what should be. When you're 2500 miles from those you once called friends, from your family, from the peace and quiet midwestern towns, all you want is a decent conversation with people who can accept the fact that we're all human, we are not transcended super saved people, we are not "better than them" as one flamboyant preacher once bodly stated, right before he stated that i would be electrocuted by God's wrath because I was not reading the appropriate version of the Bible.
so much absurdity surrounds my footsteps. If God has his angels around me, they are messing with me constantly.
The human heart, in rebellion of its depravity, seeks long and hard after beauty. My life is no different.
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1 comment:
These responses always take me so long because there are so many different ways to take everything that you have written. You go through more mood swings in a month than the average girl, and I live with eight of them so I should know…
Lewis, when writing about teaching and mentoring, says, “we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching… the hour when we can say ‘ they need me no longer’ should be our reward… if we are any good, we must always be working towards the moment at which our pupils are fit to become our critics and rivals.” He also warns that people who can understand this are few and far between – too often people feel threatened when their students and those under their guidance start to flourish and take on ideas of their own, and it seems that you have encountered many of this type.
I’ve thought a bit about this lately, especially in conjunction with my recent stint as “staff” for the high school fellowship at my church. Even in the short time I’ve spent with them, I am realizing how difficult it will be when they grow up and beyond the guidance that I am a part of. And yet that is part of “growing up.” You can’t protect them from the world forever – all you can do is teach them what you know, what you have learned, and let them go, hoping that they don’t crash too hard or too often. Mentors and leaders are human too, and no more have all the answers than you do. Sometimes the only thing they can offer is, at the end of things, to be available when you come back full of questions and heartbreak, to listen and weep together.
For someone who writes about relationships so frequently, you’re rather severe in your comments on marriage. I think we have too many preconceived notions of what marriage is, especially since we’re immersed in a culture that is me-centered and blatantly sexual. We put so much emphasis on finding “the One,” that person who will fulfill all our desires and fantasies, provide comfort and nurturing, cook us dinner, keep the house clean and fix the dishwasher and washing machine when they break, who will listen and sympathize when we need to vent about the latest stupid thing that someone did to us, be rich enough to buy us a home in Beverly Hills, and, perhaps by the world’s standards most importantly, be earth-shatteringly incredible in bed.
Marriage is not easy, but it is not made any easier by the unwieldy expectations that we place on it. I think one of the major problems we have forgotten how to have friendship, real, true, friendship, which is vital to marriage, and so we look to romance and physical intimacy to make up for those deficiencies. It’s evident in the way that we view male-female friendship – with the sneaking suspicion that it can never be purely platonic.
“Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of this universe – these are what build a marriage.” (M. L’Engle)
They are also what build a friendship.
One last thought… what would be the good of a life in which we had all the answers? Much as it is a burden, the simple knowledge that I will never understand everything gives life much of its meaning. I would hate to live in complacency, meekly accepting everything as it comes and never feeling like there was something more. Better to wonder, and feel that emptiness, and have that longing for the unknown.
Lewis again: “It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills…the colour and the smell and looking across at the grey mountain in the distance. And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it.”
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