So, it's a mixed blessing, as every life is, of course. I recently read this blog post and was very grateful for her honesty and openness. I forwarded it to a friend who commented that it was a good story but that much easier to write after the 'happy ending'. I agreed, but it made me wonder how the story looks before the happy ending. What does it mean to face the inevitable burdens of solitary living and decide to be more open, and talk about it before the magic wand waves and one is transported into marital bliss? What if you make those decisions to be more open and take more risks and tell everyone about it and then the magic wand doesn't wave? What kind of magic do we most want anyway?
The first thing I know (and the reason why single people are suspicious of happy endings) is that we know this: You Cannot Cheat The System. If you read about other people's decisions to be more open-hearted and how they subsequently got married it can read like a cause and effect, from which point it's a short step to say to yourself that you'll persuade the universe (/God) that you are open-hearted and happy in order to trip the marriage switch. It may be that by facing yourself and your demons, you end up being a person who makes a better partner, but it's a process that needs to be undertaken for its own sake. You really can't fake authenticity.
And this leads me to the second thing I know: We Are All Single. In the ways that matter, we all travel this life alone. I know this sounds like a single person trying to make the best of it, but as I said, from what I've seen lately, it's the married people that often need to make the best of it. Whether married or single, we stand before God alone. Our work to reconstruct our fragmented selves is ours alone. As individual souls we are responsible for being willing to keep turning to the pieces of our lives and sitting with God as we turn them this way and that together, looking for a fit, standing back every so often to see the pattern emerging, our own individual, unique image of God. That is the real wave of the magic wand.
Others - whether our partner or our community - can help us by passing the glue, or they might hammer us into more pieces. When we count on another human being to complete us and give us meaning we ask too much of them and too little of ourselves. When we say we don't need other human beings and don't step out into the world we ask too much of ourselves and too little of others; after all they may need us to pass them the glue too. Finding the balance is the happy beginning.
The Journey ~ David Whyte
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.
You are not leaving,
even as the light
fades quickly now,
you are arriving.
2 comments:
Ooh, nice post :)
I was single and living alone and solitary for four years and that space for me was like a cave, and deep and dark and lovely. I had fallen apart somewhat, so it was a different scenario I guess than day-to-day living.
However, even while I was falling apart, and after, I always loved my solitude. I can go for several days without seeing anyone else and just simply not care. Living alone, I had all the time in the world to do the things I wanted to do, and to procrastinate getting there (what's the deal with creativity and procrastination? :)
And it's true, it's so much easier being alone with God than being alone with God with someone else. I do sometimes miss that, and I look back to all of those stretched-out days of solitude, but I was lonely as well.
Now things are different, but I wouldn't want it any other way. It is a delight to have found someone who is such a good fit, even though I am still struggling in this space to be me, really me. I've continued fighting my demons since we've been sharing the same space, and I am grateful for that. Which is a weird thing to say but I think from what you've written you would certainly understand it.
I think the cheap version of sharing a life with someone found in pretty much every romantic song I've ever heard is not anything else but codependence. The whole "you complete me" thing sends off massive alarm bells in me. I don't think people are ready to truly be a part of someone else's life without losing themselves until they know what it is to feel the completeness within themselves. I couldn't do this if I didn't know that space.
(And there's something delicious about the fact that that completeness comes in the midst of feeling so fragmented so often. It's a beautiful grace :)
Sheesh, sorry for waffling. I'm struggling to collect my thoughts into any sort of coherence lately, it's very frustrating :\
I LOVE this post.
and having undergone a break-up relatively recently, I have been thinking about how being single compares to dating someone, and how I have points of feeling very supported and being very lonely regardless of what place I'm in. I've always felt very strongly that the pursuit of identity and satisfaction is first and foremost a thing between God and I, that others are invited into. But no matter how much I have learned from someone or how much of myself I've invested in them, at the end of the day (or season...) I've always had to return to the fact that the only thing unfailing is God, and that I can't even look to myself to be consistent and true. There's something very reassuring for me about knowing that God is, in many ways, the only one I can have expectations of and put hope in. It makes my human relationships much more satisfying and life-giving.
I quoted this post on my blog. I love the way it's worded. Thank you. :)
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