Happy Ending?

In advance: forgive how this rambles...if it does...

Today we celebrated a 60th wedding anniversary. Seriously, 60? Yes. 60. I am amazed, and was honestly brought to tears watching those two together today. The husband is a man that taught my father (and takes great pride in that fact) and that I have grown to love as a grandfatherly sort. He is truly amazing as a human being. His wife is one of my favorite residents. She has a debilitating illness and rarely even knows what day it is. She doesn't know who I am, though I see and talk to her every day, and she doesn't recognize her children. But when her husband comes in, her face lights up and, she smiles. She KNOWS who he is. And it's breathtaking to behold that kind of love. I honestly feel blessed to have even been in the presence of that kind of love.

And of course that got me thinking about all the things that I love. There are lots of things that I love. I love Red Bull. I love a great glass of wine with really crappy TV. I LOVE a kick-ass pair of heels. I love writing. I love reading (anything). I love laughing. I love pearls (so chic). I love lipgloss and French manicures. I love my trinity knot toe ring. I love collecting items for an apartment that I don't have. I love anything that sparkles and glitters.

There's plenty of things absent from the above list...live music, meeting bands, spirituality, road trips, Twitter, playing in the rain, Blue Moon Honey Moon beer...I could literally blog for hours on end about all the things that I love.

Things. I began thinking as I was thinking (this happens to me frequently) and I realized that everything listed is...a thing. There is not a person nor a place listed. All the things I chose to list were just things. And while they certainly are things that I love...I'm a bit disheartened at this list.

So then I went on to the next part. The who I love. My family. The close few friends. And then I realized how desperately lonely I am for a relationship. And how I have been for some time. I've just been ignoring the loneliness and masking it with other emotions. But today after watching this couple who have spent 60 years of their lives together as a couple...I couldn't hide myself from the all consuming empty feeling I had about not being in a relationship. So...what to do?

There is the easy answer. Go to a bar and hook up with someone. Not fulfilling and I am not much of a bar scene lady. So that's out. Join dating sites online. I've joined one before...no success nor even any interest in it. And as I realized that I had no interest in the whole online dating thing...I realized that I also have no interest in dating. Anyone. At all.

Because I do love someone. There is a person that I love. I had a totally Cher moment from Clueless. I was "totally butt crazy in love" with this person. He's been in front of me since January of 2009...and it took until July 2010 for me to realize that THIS man is my person.

And while I'm on the subject...let me declare that when I say my "person" I don't know exactly what I mean by that. I just know that there is such a raw, organic, almost primal reaction to just the thought of him from my heart and soul that I've never experienced with anybody before. Ever. I think I thought I knew what love was. No...I KNOW that I thought I was in love. This man...transcends love and passes right into my very being.

I've been through more with this person emotionally than I have with the closest of my friends and family. We've been through loss and personal triumphs. Growth and regression. We've shared pieces of ourselves that we didn't know existed until the other brought it out. We have shared our lives for nearly a year and a half and yet...I have never seen him in person. I have never breathed the air that he is breathing. I have never held his hand. But I love him more than I have ever even considered it possible to love another human being. In all honesty (as I said before) I don't think I've ever been in love. Real, authentic love takes respect, and trust, and honesty...things severely lacking in my previous "serious" relationship.

So...if I'm not interested in anyone but this man...and he lives on a different continent...what do I do? I mean...this is crazy. But they say life is crazy. I think that an Anne Lamott quote sums up my situation perfectly.

"When God is about to do something wonderful, He or She starts with a hardship. When God is going to do something amazing He or She starts with an impossibility." - Anne Lamott

And while I'm at it there's a quote from a Hannah Montana song that keeps floating around in my head (and yes I KNOW I'm 26)

"They say that good things take time, but really great things happen in the blink of an eye..." God bless that Miley Cyrus.

Honestly, this whole thing started slowly...but got serious quickly. And I can genuinely say that our meeting was by pure destiny. We did not meet on a dating site, neither one of us was searching for a life partner. And neither of us were ready for one either...but life doesn't always wait for one to be "ready" all the time. At the same time is there ever such a thing as "ready?" I mean most of the time we want to wait...we hesitate. We pause. We're careful. And I'm definitely one of the most guarded and careful people I know. I have walls. I have trust issues. I have a sense of self on my good days and on others I just float around and fake it (pretty damn well if I do say so myself). But this man...the love I feel for him...it surpasses the hesitation. It ends the pause. It ignores the "what ifs." It crumbles the walls I've spent years building. It makes me realize that life isn't going to just stop while I assemble the pieces of us fitting together. I have to figure out how to do that with what I've got RIGHT now. I lose all sense of "reality" when this person floats around in my head. I live in a world where anything is possible and a life filled with love is an inevitability. Happily ever after isn't just a line from a fairytale.

And Miley Cyrus tells me that great things just happen. And Anne Lamott tells me that the best and greatest things begin with impossibility. Let's face it...this relationship is nothing but impossibilities. I am in Iowa. He is in Ireland. I am damn near homeless. I have no clue what to do with the rest of my life. As a matter of fact...a month ago I wasn't even sure I was going to have a life. And yet I find myself, today, rambling about the fact that I can't live without this person. Let's call him...Mr. Spark. Because Mr. Big is too cliche and everybody does Mr. X.

I don't know what my future is going to look like. I don't know where I see myself in ten years. But I do know that somewhere in there my fairytale with Mr. Spark is waiting. And that one day, my prince will come...and if I'm lucky we'll sit in chairs one day and tell the young kids taking care of us how we made it to our 60th.

Still here.

I re-read my blogs recently. Every single one of them. And it seems I tend to "think" a lot. And then start my blog by saying so. Really...this thinking could be termed obsessive analysis of my life. Lately, I've been doing a lot of the "big" analysis stuff. The really heavy, hard to deal with things. And I've also been reading a lot. The last book I read (highly fantastic if you have an interest in the Celts, or broadening your spirituality) was Anam Cara by John O'Donohue. "Anam cara" is Gaelic for soul friend. I plan on having this tattooed under my trinity knot on the back of my neck in the near future. For...if the book left me sure of nothing else...the Holy Trinity is certainly my deepest and most trusted soul friend.

Anyway, I also had a seemingly random novel pop into my head and I re-read the short story that spawned the novel. Flowers for Algernon popped into my head whilst playing "No Sleep till Brooklyn" by the Beastie Boys on Guitar Hero: World Tour (obviously these two things are COMPLETELY related...note sarcasm). It turns out...after extensive and obsessive analysis that while the Beastie Boys and the novel were unrelated...the fact that this particular novel just appeared clear as day in my head was not a random occurrence.

I find frequently, few things in life really are just random happenings. I've always claimed to be a believer that things happen for a reason. Since moving to Iowa, I really am a believer. However...I am still not a TRUSTer that this is true. For me, belief and trust hold two such different implications that I can't lump them into the same category. I believe in God. I trust in God. I believe in the resurrection of the body...but I don't necessarily trust this. Make sense? I believe when people tell me that they'll change...but I'll trust it only when I see changes start to occur. If you're still not understanding this it's probably cause it doesn't make sense.

Anyway. I pride myself on the amount of spontaneity that I am comfortable living with. The truth of the matter is...I'm scared to death about the fact that I have no "plans" for the rest of my life. Or even the rest of this month. But I not only believe, I TRUST, that I'm being led down a path that will bring me ultimately happiness and contentment. A very wise person recently wrote in an e-mail to me:

Don't worry about where you are in life right now. I had the exact same thoughts and issues when I was there, and it's something I still struggle with. Just keep pushing and fighting for yourself and I promise things will work out. Always remember that sometimes we have this idea in our heads of what the perfect situation is or should be, and it turns out that what actually works best is something you never even dreamed of. Just continue to remember that as long as you keep fighting for it, good things will come.

And since I trust this person with my life...I'm going to trust this advice. And you know what a happy coincidence is? I believe it too. However...the above advice, while trusted and sound, makes me a bit uneasy. Perhaps it's the word "fight." I'm intentional about my language and I don't like the idea of fighting for anything. I know that's a word used frequently when talking about "getting places" and "achieving goals," but I prefer....meander. So I'll keep "meandering" for myself and "meandering towards" good things coming my way. See that's one of the things that the whole anam cara concept revolves around.

The Celts have a beautiful regard for the symbolism of the circle. And I think that perhaps that's why I have always felt more at home with the image of a Celtic cross as opposed to a traditional Christian cross. In the book, O'Donohue writes that the circle intersects the pain and loneliness of the cross literally encircling this image in eternity and soul. He says it better than I just did, but I love the idea that there IS beauty in the cross even though it's usually quite a gruesome image. That's not the point here though. The point is simply the circle. The author continually drives the reader to come to an understanding that life, while often thought of as a journey, really isn't. Because we are soul and body (and his theory...with the Celts...is that the soul is NOT in the body but the body is IN the SOUL) life is really more of a homecoming. We "journey" outward towards those things which we think will bring us to our "home," when really...we were born at home inside of ourselves. And it isn't until death when our soul is freed from body that we truly realize we ARE and always have been home. Great then, is the man/woman who can begin to "journey" around self only and still live a full life.


It is in this frame of mind that I am embarking on the next part of my "journey" home. I have blogged about returning to the great old East Coast. And some parts of me want nothing more than to live in the "real" world again. In all honesty though, I've made Iowa a very real part of my life and there are some possibilities here that I want to explore to the fullest before heading...somewhere. And since I can take comfort in the fact that I am already home...it's just choosing a physical location at this point. And I figure my good old anam cara will help out with that. Either by a subtle nudge or a giant shove. Whichever works (I tend to need the damn shove...and then a push after that...followed by a kick in the ass).


So anyway. The reason for all the reading and the analyzing and the constant criticism comes down to the fact that I am lonely. And as luck would have it...there's a whole theme in the Celtic wisdom book on loneliness being friend rather than foe. It's not a new concept to me. I understand the "love yourself before you can love others" thing. And I know that for me, I really do need to take some time out and look deep inside myself and do some great healing before I can commit to any other person in any true sense. Still...that doesn't help when I'm hugging a stuffed animal at night or wanting to go see a movie and hold someone's hand (to be fair during scary movies or particularly sentimental ones....The Last Song...Caitlyn will let me hold her hand). What does help is that sometimes God senses this loneliness and gives us somebody that we need. And in God's ever humorous way...I've been given someone that has helped ease the loneliness. Somebody to journey with, even if it's only for a bit...and it's not at all what I thought I was looking for. Still...it's better than nothing.


And that whole Flowers for Algernon thing? I think that came to me...and keeps coming to me...to remind me that ultimately all the knowledge in the world is not going to "get" me to my place or lead me to the person I want to be. This can ONLY be achieved through actual living. Through pain and suffering, joy and laughter. Through trial and through play. It is Charlie who taught me a great deal about myself and forced me to take a look, not at who I am...but at who I was. There's a great line in a song by The Format (now re-formed and re-grouped as fun. for those interested) that says "when I said I hate what I'd become, I lied I hated who I was." That line has ALWAYS jumped out at me. I've been saying for the past...10 years that I hate what I've become. This isn't true. I hated the person I was for the past 10 years. And I acted like it. And because of this damn novel about a really super smart mouse and a retard...I finally realized that. It's a very freeing thing to be able to type that I don't hate who I am. I hate who I was. And I am no longer the person I was 10 years ago. Or 10 months ago. Or even 10 days ago. I may have her eyes and her smile, her tears and her tattoos...but I am not the same person. And Charlie and Algernon made me remember that there is a difference between wisdom and knowledge. And the worlds between the two are like my ideas of belief and trust. They are literally in different universes of truth for me.


So I write today, liberated of the woman I was. Not yet knowing the woman I am. And praying for the woman I will be. And I know that I carry them all inside of me, and I hope one day they all learn to like each other (or this is going to be a long 60ish years...). I write today, attempting to forgive myself for dishonoring and mistreating the person I was. I write today trying to love who I am at this moment. I write today as lonely as one can possibly be...but with a contentedness about my solitude. I write today for the men and women that did not make it through their self-hatred and struggles alive to give their being another chance. I write today for those lives that have been lost to hopelessness and despair. I write today for those who were in too much pain to hold on. And I write today, for all of those that will forever wait for Monday...