But ... Was It Marriage?

I have been engaged in a silent, stubborn, and reluctant struggle throughout all of this day. Those of you who have done me the honor of reading my heart’s expressions, have been so kind as to say things like “You are a rare man who is willing to ‘put it all out there’ without hesitation or apology." Well, my Dear, trusting Friend, I have been hesitating all day today.

My usual course is to post a fresh thought prior to leaving for work each morning. I often hear the guiding voice of my Dear inner Muse late in the day before putting an idea to paper. (That’s right … I do like to feel the heft of sweet old Waterman between my fingers, and the tactile delight of that magical ink being pulled from the nib by the waiting page.) I have all night to allow myself to listen to my Muses guiding revelations as I “sleep on” some topic that is usually completely alien to all that I have had on my mind during the days previous. Then, in the early hours, I assemble it all and type it into the computer. Not so today.

For, You see, Dear Reader, today I was not pleased with what Friend Muse had suggested last evening, and reinforced this morn. No, indeed! “It will be misunderstood!” I argued. “What will my new friends think of me?” I whined. And so it has gone for all of these past seventeen hours. “Who are you writing for?” that unyielding Muse insisted. “For your own popularity and acceptance, or for that One who is in need of what I have put on your heart to offer?” (and the “You self-centered coward” was silently implied, though not spoken)

So, here I am. Defeated! And damn glad that I am. For, you see, I would never have a moment’s satisfaction in failing to follow what I have committed my Self to … listening to Life’s leading; sculpting Life’s truth in a way that can be received and accepted; and humbly offering said Truth to whomever is trusting Life to hear their prayer and provide some helpful, sustaining, shred of hopeful insight that will allow them to take the next step in their walk down life’s pathway.

So, this evening, as shadows gather and weariness steals into my being, I offer what I have been so tardy in bringing to … that One who has been waiting.

But … Was It Marriage?

Yes! We exchanged rings. But… I was never… in my awareness; my innermost being; my soul and consciousness; married. Oh, if you looked in the County’s record books, there would be the indication that the person, known by all to be me, was legally married to the other person named there. Yet that person and I had acknowledged to each other the reality that we did not recognize our lives in the same way. We knew life and all of its elements through senses completely alien to each other.

We lived lives of accommodating separateness in the same dwelling for many years. We devoted our attentions and energies to the parenting and nurturing of our two children with a great measure of success and enjoyed the shared fullness of satisfaction in seeing our children flourish as individuals. But there existed absolutely no intimacy of conversation; shared time; spiritual awareness; physical contact; or interest in common, beyond the interests of our children, and the material requirements of daily life. For me, this bears not even the most remote, or distantly abstract similarity to marriage. Hence, I was not married. I was, however, in a relationship of committed necessity, born of devotion to the overriding needs and concerns of my two children. And that commitment; that mission; that devotion was the single constant source of joy and satisfaction in my life.

I am now (after many years of self condemnation borne of ignorance) conscious of the absolute reality that my most basic makeup; my innermost self; the element that drives my emotions, desires, needs, and tastes is, beyond all else, that of a certifiable, unchanging Romantic. This irrefutable fact has been clinically established by years or counseling, testing, and observation; documented and verified through experience. I am, therefore, constantly and perpetually vulnerable to the inclination to intimacy with every person and in every situation in my life. I am romantically predisposed toward life. This is common to all identified … (initially by Hypocrites and then by Aristotle, Plato, and myriad others after them … using differing labels … but all with the same definitions … ) as Idealists. I am one of them.

With this present awareness (which I was not conscious of during the first forty years of my life and was, therefore, left to cope in blind frustration) I can now understand the filter through which all of life’s experience has been known to me. And, furthermore, why I have always been vulnerable to the energies of those with whom I have shared life’s moments. And I would never wish to change even one of those often-painful moments at the cost of denying the Person that I now know and understand … the Person that was wondrously and specifically created to be … Me.

I write this to breathe a breath of hope and encouragement into the Spirit of One who may be struggling with conflicts between their inner senses and the preponderance of voices instructing them in the way that they “should be.” To you, Dear Reader (whoever you are) I say from the depths of my soul, BE who You are … embrace the wonder of who You are … protect and defend the unique and marvelous Individual that You are … and patiently, with gentle loving care, help those who share your world with You to know and accept You. This I write in hope and trust in the validity and worth of … You.

IMAGE: Doug Hough, The Lens flair