"I berated myself for being so stupid to love something all out that I knew was not mine to keep."
Maria made this statement in a wonderful, wonderful blog post today on Advent IV. I love when a thought captures me completely and resonates. Maria tells a touching story about her experience with a "crack baby" during a medical school rotation. I highly recommend you check it out. Besides, her post is the catalyst for my post.
Maria berated herself for being so stupid to love something that was not hers to keep. There are those who argue that women on welfare have multiple babies as a "con" to garner increased welfare checks, but I tend to see wisdom in a different theory. They do it because they are addicted to that wondrous love between a mother and her infant. They crave that love in their otherwise dreary, difficult lives. When the baby begins to develop too strong of a sense of self and that intoxicating mother/baby bond begins to fade, some women choose to repeat the process over and over. It's an addiction that I can understand -- at least partially. My relationship to my animals - the menagerie - comes from a similar hunger. That's how I ended up with four dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and some fish.
Maria and I both live solitary lives in our respective hermitages. When we chat on the phone, I believe I can sense, at times, a profound loneliness in her voice. Modern psychology would tell me that I am likely projecting--that I am the one with the profound loneliness. However, I also hear that loneliness at times when I am talking to partnered friends, friends with big families, friends with a spouse but no children. I think that being such a secular monastic -- a fancy way of saying "hermit"-- I am more in tune with that "loneliness." From this point forward though I will refer to it as "aloneness" for I believe that that is what is really being experienced by us all.
All living creatures must exist in their own aloneness. We exist, trapped in our bodies, desperately wishing others would understand how we feel inside. We seek love to try and counter that aloneness. Some women do it by having babies. Others do it by making sure they always have a girlfriend or boyfriend. Many, many - much of the population - do it by "marrying." Those of us who have turned to animal companions, we have learned over time that the only love that exists - the only real love - is that when we allow ourselves to openly love knowing that it's never ours to keep.
"Keeping" implies ownership, permanence, stagnation. Yet in our insecurity, in our fear of that ubiquitous aloneness, we cling to an individual like a drowning man. Think Jennifer Hudson in Dream Girls: "And I am telling you, I'm not going...cause you're the best man I've ever known..." Or my Grandmother at the bedside of my dying grandfather, "Jolly, don't leave me..."
Awakening to the understanding that no love is truly ours to keep and bravely loving anyway.
Unconditional love. Compassion. Seeing the Creator in the Creature.
"What is this thing...called love" "All you need is love." "Love will keep us together."
"Love stinks." "Love is a stranger in an open car." "Love shack, baby, love shack."
"Love stinks." "Love is a stranger in an open car." "Love shack, baby, love shack."
Maria berated herself for being so stupid to love something that was not hers to keep. There are those who argue that women on welfare have multiple babies as a "con" to garner increased welfare checks, but I tend to see wisdom in a different theory. They do it because they are addicted to that wondrous love between a mother and her infant. They crave that love in their otherwise dreary, difficult lives. When the baby begins to develop too strong of a sense of self and that intoxicating mother/baby bond begins to fade, some women choose to repeat the process over and over. It's an addiction that I can understand -- at least partially. My relationship to my animals - the menagerie - comes from a similar hunger. That's how I ended up with four dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and some fish.
Maria and I both live solitary lives in our respective hermitages. When we chat on the phone, I believe I can sense, at times, a profound loneliness in her voice. Modern psychology would tell me that I am likely projecting--that I am the one with the profound loneliness. However, I also hear that loneliness at times when I am talking to partnered friends, friends with big families, friends with a spouse but no children. I think that being such a secular monastic -- a fancy way of saying "hermit"-- I am more in tune with that "loneliness." From this point forward though I will refer to it as "aloneness" for I believe that that is what is really being experienced by us all.
All living creatures must exist in their own aloneness. We exist, trapped in our bodies, desperately wishing others would understand how we feel inside. We seek love to try and counter that aloneness. Some women do it by having babies. Others do it by making sure they always have a girlfriend or boyfriend. Many, many - much of the population - do it by "marrying." Those of us who have turned to animal companions, we have learned over time that the only love that exists - the only real love - is that when we allow ourselves to openly love knowing that it's never ours to keep.
"Keeping" implies ownership, permanence, stagnation. Yet in our insecurity, in our fear of that ubiquitous aloneness, we cling to an individual like a drowning man. Think Jennifer Hudson in Dream Girls: "And I am telling you, I'm not going...cause you're the best man I've ever known..." Or my Grandmother at the bedside of my dying grandfather, "Jolly, don't leave me..."
Awakening to the understanding that no love is truly ours to keep and bravely loving anyway.
2 comments:
You have nailed it with the word "aloneness." "Loneliness" implies that there is, perhaps a desire to change the condition. "Aloneness" is more complicated. It's not that you or I would necessarily want to change the condition, but that we have a huge awareness that certain stuff comes with the condition. One of the pieces of certain stuff is that this love you give, that you MUST give because that is the nature of your humanity, must have NO expectations attached. Happy and well-adjusted solitary people cannot carry the delusion that giving love away has any sort of expectation of reciprocity.
That "aloneness" comes from being fully awake to the notion that no love is truly ours to keep, and yet we soldier forward, loving just the same. If love returns to us, we don't really credit the love we gave as the "source" of it. We accept it simply for the gift it is.
I am laughing, of course, cyber-bro, b/c I hear it in you on the phone, too! Mostly when you're physically tired or ailing. Since I'm so seldom sick, and the rumor is that I never sleep, I imagine mine comes out more when I'm "consternated," as my granny used to say!
Thank you for this today. It was perfect for me and my recent internal speak. Be well. jesse
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