The Old Spinster...

I never wrote this personal piece last year when I was writing a lot about the period of renunciation I was in "Om Namah Shivaya," "Pancakes and Ice Cream," "Naked," "Death by Shiva," etc... - but it's what triggered it. Perhaps on this personal level you'll understand...

I had been relentlessly infatuated with someone who didn't reciprocate the feeling (anyone else here relate? :-) One day, in one of those epically beautiful and heart wrenching scenarios, I sat alone as he walked away and left me with that mournful longing in my heart, a wolf howling to the moon for her pack. But what was I to do but honestly acknowledge that he wouldn't (couldn't?) fulfill this emptiness in my heart??

So I sat, on the banks of a slow lazy river, lonely and sad. I write to myself, "it's comfort I wish from him - 'yes, you are loved' - but it's comfort I can only receive from God."

The sadness and tenderness I feel in this moment soften, and I comfort myself... I know I can remember God, and find fulfillment in that. I know to some extent this man was protecting himself rightly from my desperate grasping. On the other hand, he was afraid and unable to love...

Some days later, I write a song of forgiveness and gratitude for him, "I love you, like the sunlight loves the clear sky. In your presence, I become Light, and Infinite..." I share the song, and invite him not to take it "personally." But he does, throwing up a veil of separation even in the face of unconditional love.

But it is sung, offered freely, forever.

...
Later, sharing with a friend how this experience finally (if painfully) unearthed this amazing unconscious thought: "if only (when only) I find the right partner, the right relationship, then my life will be complete." A part of me has been fearful of this silly vision of being alone and old - that crazy spinster with her cats. Funny thing is, I tend to prefer my home aloneness. Except of course when I'm sharing time with friends, or making love, or laughing with children, or...

But nonetheless, you can see now why I felt it wise to go through a period of "renunciation" of sorts - to unravel and unempower these clinging thoughts, and to simply find peace. And indeed, it's been now a couple years since I've been in a love relationship... Finding contentment, santosha...

Only this week have my heartstrings been pulled again (as opposed to my luststrings - those have been pulled many times) - though from afar. And so at this precipice, this tender heart wishes to remember the absurdity of that unspoken thought, that something is missing, that I am incomplete. Ha! From out of fullness to allow my heart to open to connection if/when the time is true.

A deepening of wisdom has arisen in these months and years of doing-without. I don't even feel capable of doing things in the same, absurd ways. There's a depth and caring for life that has grown beyond the borders of my petty personal longings... But I still see the possibility of a foolish heart arising anytime...

Hmm, I think I've opened a can of worms - I could write endlessly on this subject because I don't yet have any answers, as I'm still living the questions! So I'll stop now and set it free....