“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It’s like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction—every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it’s really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour.” –Silvia Plath’s The Bell JarI remember her refined, British voice coming through the speakers in my car. I don’t know her name, and I thought her ideas were radical. She was being interviewed on NPR, and she was calling for Muslims to adapt the Koran to meet the needs of more contemporary audiences. She also begged Christians to reconsider the Old Testament laws and decide which ones we must actually adhere to. She wanted to discard the antiquated laws. She spoke of the dynamic nature of faith, and I thought of the timelessness of the faiths of old. She spoke in tangents, and my brain (which has ADD tendencies) appreciated her dynamic speaking despite the obvious discrepancies in our thinking.
Then I really heard her: she was talking about a time when she went out with two of her gay friends. They were in a noisy, British pub, and the two women were trying to convince the speaker that she, too, was gay. She spoke of her epiphany saying, “I’m not homosexual; I’m a failed heterosexual.”
In many ways, I feel like a failed heterosexual. I often tell my friends I feel that part of me is “broken.” The men I’m interested in tend not to be attracted to me, and those who fall for me are too nice for my liking. They're just so boring.
It’s gone a step closer to failure, though. I always harbored romantic ideas of marriage and family, since my own family was broken in so many ways. I knew I would have a chance to “make things right” with a family of my own. I’m not sure I want that anymore.
I want to be a mama, but I’m not sure I will ever, again, want to be a wife. I know, for sure, that I don’t want to be alone, but I’m not sure community must come in the form of marriage.
Is that so wrong?
5 comments:
Just different. I love you just the way you are! Thank you for this morning- it was so much fun!
You are definitely not broken...you've heard that from me before, you'll probably hear it again. You are seriously one of the most amazing people I know and through your friendships, teaching, and involvement you've touched so many lives. You have mine. I have no doubt that you will continue to be an amazing person, the person you are, with or without a man...AND I know you will be an excellent mommy! Broken-No, Different-YES, Amazing-Definitely. Love you!
I entered my late 20's broken in some similar places. I wish someone would have told me then what I know now. What my faith and my experience tells me now, (as well as some beautiful mentors that came along)
Sensing and being in touch with those broken places makes for a perfect wound. A perfect wound is allowed in our lives for higher reasons. I didn't understand those higher reasons back then, but because I was encouraged to seek out comfort in my faith, I found the perfect wound to be perfect and that perfect wound is what God uses to make my life count. I continue to believe that apart from that wound, my marriage to a man with his own wounds and relationships with my children would be shallow and incomplete. have you read The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen? Just because it didn't work in my family of origin (or my man's) doesn't mean it wasn't meant to be for me. In fact as I press through that pain, my wounded healer (Jesus) uses it to transcend what has always been. the Way through pain is into it. read the passage again, you literary guru, of Jesus in the Garden before he died. This is where the passion of life is birthed...accepting that wounded walk, and being brought to life in spite of it. Flannery O'Connor says, "Grace must wound before it can heal." Loving you. rox
I've been thinking about this blog all day and now I'm back. I think the true question of the day is
so what's so bad about the word broken? A broken person is different than a person with some brokenness in their life. One implies a permanent state of being and the other one implies a journey is taking place. I like what Kimberly says, you are amazing and I know you have positive effects on people, especially in your classroom. Brokenness and discomfort drive us into the giftedness. Just don't go on that drive alone... Go on that drive with the One who was broken himself so we don't have to go alone. Did that sound imperious?
Thanks, Rox. Far from imperious. I agree that brokenness can be a good thing, but I hope not to live broken. I love the Flannery O'Connor quote. I hope there is healing in my future. It must get better.
This is one of the most difficult, shameful areas of my life. I can "fix" most things, but this one is, mostly, out of my control. Since I can't make marriage/relationships happen in my life, I have forced myself to believe that I'm okay without it and that I don't want marriage. Sadly, I think I honestly believe that, now. It makes it a little bit easier. If I chose it, it's liberating.
Tonight, I will dust of my Bible and re-read that old, familiar story. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
And thanks for loving on me. As always :)
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