"I just don't have the fare."
Laughable as it may seem, I have been counselling a much younger man on a few of the intricacies of romance. Settle down my friends, I am well aware that I am the Poster Boy for failed marriages and relationships. But if I spoke any truth to this fellow at all it was in this sentence...
"When it comes to affairs of the heart; pain is the price of admission."
In other words, if you are going to play, you must be prepared to pay. If you do not want to feel hurt or insecure or rejected or just plain dazed and confused, stay home and lock the doors. This was intended to allay his fears very early on in a romance...when the issue of reciprocal feelings was very much shrouded in doubt.
Recently I have begun wondering how it applies to my own life, not in terms of a budding romance, but more concerning my interactions with my fellow man. You see, I don't do people all that well anymore.
To quote the film Barfly...
"It's not that I don't like people, I just seem to feel better when they're not around."
In the main, this applys to me at this stage of my life. I do feel better when they are not around. My gregarious nature still surfaces in their company, but I have little urge to seek out the company of others, with the exception of a couple of male friends that I see for maybe an hour at a time now and again.
I believe this connects to my advice to the aforementioned suitor in this way. I am no longer prepared to pay the price of admission. Frankly, I am all stocked up on pain here. Almost of it is a direct dividend of my own investment, so I do not mean to blame others, and I freely admit I have served up great portions of hurt over my lifetime. Yes, I have reaped what I have sowed, cut and dried.
The obvious answer is to forgive myself as quickly as I will forgive another. Truly a sweet deal if one can manage it. There is no question that what knowledge I have garnered since my acceptance of Christ teaches me to do just that. But I cannot. I reflect on the shambles that is my history, and know full well I have left a broad trail of misdeeds...a trail littered with broken family relationships, terribly damaged loved ones and incurable heartaches. God is surely in the forgiveness business, but this pilgrim is not, and the more I feel I cannot absolve myself as the architect of so much, the harder the forgiveness of others becomes. So I protect myself with a monastic lifestyle, thinking the less I communicate and interact with people, the less opportunity I will have to hurt and be hurt.
And it works, damn it...it works! I mostly enjoy it, and that should be wrong. It is selfish behaviour all over again. It is so much easier than trying to find and build a sense of belonging in this community, where my free thinking ways are seen as nothing less than a dangerous threat to conventional, acceptable order.
My battle this day is with that very way of free thinking. I am trying to reprogram myself...to rid myself of fantasy...to purge my brain of the patterns which inevitably lead me to a greater sense of self loathing when fantasy collides violently with reality in a stark, cold facts only, manner.
Is this Gods' plan for me? A kind of purgatory of penance for my crimes? I don't think so, but my thinking is so skewered as to be in question at all times. Perhaps my situation tells me that I am not living in faith yet...with the spirit inside and healthy, but still wandering the barren land of lost souls. A distinct possibility.
I do know I am running out of time to get it sorted out.
"When it comes to affairs of the heart; pain is the price of admission."
In other words, if you are going to play, you must be prepared to pay. If you do not want to feel hurt or insecure or rejected or just plain dazed and confused, stay home and lock the doors. This was intended to allay his fears very early on in a romance...when the issue of reciprocal feelings was very much shrouded in doubt.
Recently I have begun wondering how it applies to my own life, not in terms of a budding romance, but more concerning my interactions with my fellow man. You see, I don't do people all that well anymore.
To quote the film Barfly...
"It's not that I don't like people, I just seem to feel better when they're not around."
In the main, this applys to me at this stage of my life. I do feel better when they are not around. My gregarious nature still surfaces in their company, but I have little urge to seek out the company of others, with the exception of a couple of male friends that I see for maybe an hour at a time now and again.
I believe this connects to my advice to the aforementioned suitor in this way. I am no longer prepared to pay the price of admission. Frankly, I am all stocked up on pain here. Almost of it is a direct dividend of my own investment, so I do not mean to blame others, and I freely admit I have served up great portions of hurt over my lifetime. Yes, I have reaped what I have sowed, cut and dried.
The obvious answer is to forgive myself as quickly as I will forgive another. Truly a sweet deal if one can manage it. There is no question that what knowledge I have garnered since my acceptance of Christ teaches me to do just that. But I cannot. I reflect on the shambles that is my history, and know full well I have left a broad trail of misdeeds...a trail littered with broken family relationships, terribly damaged loved ones and incurable heartaches. God is surely in the forgiveness business, but this pilgrim is not, and the more I feel I cannot absolve myself as the architect of so much, the harder the forgiveness of others becomes. So I protect myself with a monastic lifestyle, thinking the less I communicate and interact with people, the less opportunity I will have to hurt and be hurt.
And it works, damn it...it works! I mostly enjoy it, and that should be wrong. It is selfish behaviour all over again. It is so much easier than trying to find and build a sense of belonging in this community, where my free thinking ways are seen as nothing less than a dangerous threat to conventional, acceptable order.
My battle this day is with that very way of free thinking. I am trying to reprogram myself...to rid myself of fantasy...to purge my brain of the patterns which inevitably lead me to a greater sense of self loathing when fantasy collides violently with reality in a stark, cold facts only, manner.
Is this Gods' plan for me? A kind of purgatory of penance for my crimes? I don't think so, but my thinking is so skewered as to be in question at all times. Perhaps my situation tells me that I am not living in faith yet...with the spirit inside and healthy, but still wandering the barren land of lost souls. A distinct possibility.
I do know I am running out of time to get it sorted out.
posted by Byron | 4:29 AM
1 Comments:
thank you for writing this. i think your freewheeling way of thinking is a gift to all who have ears to hear. some don't. they loose.
i hope the pain caused by my infrequent attempts at connecting is not too much of cost for our relationship. i certainly relate with you when you say, "...I have served up great portions of hurt over my lifetime..." fortunately for me (or maybe unfortunately), "the obvious answer is to forgive myself as quickly as I will forgive another". yes it is a sweet deal but if it's too easy to forgive myself, it's also too easy to reoffend. oh, well.
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