“I Said Yes!”

“I said yes!” The all-too familiar phrase flashes across my screen. My first reaction is joyful surprise at another of my friends accepting a marriage proposal. My second reaction, almost simultaneous with the first, is a pang of grief. My friend enters a new stage of life, never to be the same again. I am losing part of her.

Perhaps I feel some jealousy when a couple gets engaged; I would love to be married someday. But not yet. I am called to a different destiny for the time being. What I do feel is a form of nostalgia for the girl I used to know – the one whom I’d stay up late with, talking about our dreams, our insecurities, our sexual frustration. No longer would we share the kinship singlehood provided. She has found her calling to be a wife, and I do not wish her to neglect that calling. It is as it should be, but it still hurts.

The challenge of saying yes to something is sometimes it requires saying goodbye to something else. We will not cease our friendship simply because she is getting married. In fact perhaps our friendship may take on a deeper meaning because she is following her calling, becoming more the person she is meant to be. But our friendship as I once knew it will be no more. Something has shifted, grown, evolved.

The woman I described above is not just one friend, but multiple of my friends who have evolved, one by one, to meet their calling. I, like Jo in Little Women, question “Why does everyone have to go off and get married? Why can’t things stay the way they are?” But just as I would not wish children to remain children (when they are meant to become adults), so would I not wish for my friends to remain single when they are meant to be married.

Strangely enough, the engaged women I see on my social media feed are often people I have lost touch with. I have longed to connect with them, but our paths have taken different turns over the years, and the closeness I once felt with them is but a memory. I cherish those memories, I grieve them, I hold them close to me. Most of them may not even know how deeply I valued our connection, however short a time we had it. Through life changes, our individual communities changed, and it was no longer practical to share the same closeness we once did. Oh, but I miss that closeness.

As I say goodbye to the parts of these women I once knew, I find myself saying yes to something else on the horizon. Not a marriage proposal per say, but a calling nonetheless. A deep stirring within my spirit, beckoning me to move. I will not neglect this calling, much like my friends will not neglect their calling to marriage. My soul whispers, “It is time.” And I am ready.

I Yearn for More

The question “How are you?” has morphed into a shallow greeting not meant to elicit an honest response. Those who do wish for an honest response have to probe further to uncover the mysteries that lie beneath the masks. Perhaps the more appropriate question to ask would be “How is your soul?”

If I am honest with myself, my likely answer to that question is “My soul is groaning.” I can tell you what my daily stressors are and why my life is hard, but that barely scratches the surface. Beneath the top soil of my heart lies the tough clay surrounding the root of my struggles, which sometimes not even I can define. Words are not sufficient to describe my feelings, my yearning for something I do not know how to find. And often this translates to depression.

I do not deny that chronic depression is an illness, a chemical imbalance of the brain that should be addressed. It is a battle I have fought for many years. Those who wrestle with depression feel differently from those who do not, even if it entails periods of numbness. There is a depth to the darkness that lasts indefinitely, casting a spell of fog upon those who experience that darkness. One could even argue that those who are depressed feel more deeply in certain ways. But suppose this is not a bad thing? Suppose we looked at depression from a different lens?

What if depression is not merely an illness, but a deeper realization of what it means to groan for eternity? That my soul longs for an unearthly love not yet realized? The material woes and issues of this life are but a thumbnail of a bigger picture which has yet to be revealed. A rocky relationship may propel me to fear that I am not loved and will therefore be alone. A dwindling bank account may scare me into thinking I will not be provided for.

Often we realize and express these anxieties only on the surface level, hoping that if we could just make more money or get along better in a relationship that our problems will be solved. We cling to these tangible issues because they are the some of the only ways we know how to express the deeper feelings of our hearts.

Truthfully, solving the issues on the surface may make life more convenient, but it will not satisfy the underlying ache that permeates the very fibers of my being. To place my hope of fulfillment on my surface saviors is a burden none of them were built to bear.

Many who aware of their deeper feelings have come to this realization, that nothing on this earth can fully meet their most intimate needs. As a result, people have ended their lives as a sign of giving up on this world, longing for a sense of relief and rest. They are right to realize the emptiness of life, but as most therapists will say, suicide is not the answer. What is has been debated over centuries, because this life as we know it is simply too limited for us to completely understand the human spirit. This much is clear: we are meant for something greater; what that entails remains to be discovered.

The Intricacy of Intimacy

“Had a great talk with a friend of mine last night. We conversed until well past midnight about life, relationships, and our personalities. We got to talking about Myers-Briggs personality types, and how my friend’s personality is complimentary to mine, mine being INFJ, and hers being ENFP. With our two middle letters being the same and the outside letters being different, our personalities work well together. We joked about how it was a shame one of us wasn’t a guy so we could marry each other.

Later that night something clicked while I was lying in bed: I almost began feeling less lonely. Yes, I still longed for intimacy with a guy as well as sarcastic banter, but I realized that I found it really refreshing to be with someone whose personality complemented mine and who was aware of her mental health. I realized that while my loneliness didn’t go away, she is someone I would feel comfortable being lonely with. Not in a weird, romantic way, but such that we’ve been able to develop a friendship over the years that has allowed us to share personal things with each other. And that realization makes me happy.”

That was a journal entry of mine from back in April of this year. I was visiting a friend whom I hadn’t seen for awhile, and I loved how we could pick back up from where we left off despite not having talked in who knows how long. We have been friends for several years, and if the saying is true that says if you’re friends with someone for longer than seven years you’re friends for life, I guess that means that she and I are pretty much stuck with each other, no matter how many miles are between us.

I share this to express my reflections on the human desire to bond, and how that desire has affected me. Often I would describe myself as being lonely, no matter how often I spend time with people. I have realized that loneliness cannot be cured by another person, and while socialization does help to remedy it, becoming dependent on other people for our own happiness is unhealthy. This is why I say that I don’t want someone to take away my loneliness, but rather I want someone to be lonely with.

A few months ago when I visited my friend, I realized that she was someone I enjoyed feeling lonely with. We were able to share with each other things we struggled with, things we dreamed about, things we thought were funny. While we couldn’t solve each other’s problems, we could offer our friendship to each other, and that has been an incredible gift.

Our personalities are not the same, but that allows us to learn from each other. It is through my friendship with her that I realized that intimacy comes in many different forms. When I hear the word intimacy I automatically think of physical closeness, but it is so much more than that. When conversing with this friend, I have felt somewhat of an intellectual intimacy, if you will, because we would explore philosophical topics and life issues in a way that people don’t normally do in everyday interactions. Other times I have felt an emotional intimacy because I would share with her a personal battle that I was facing.

My realization of the complexity of intimacy is important because it has helped me to understand that loneliness is often very complicated, but that does not necessarily make it a bad thing. Sometimes I crave emotional or intellectual intimacy in the form of something mentally stimulating, while at other times I just flat out want to cuddle with someone. Knowing this helps me to better understand how to take care of myself, and hopefully will help me be able to better care for others.