wedding ruminations (I of II)

sad koala is sad.
(and yes, this negates the preface)

I want to preface all this by emphasizing that what I write isn’t born of pain but from observation, and it’s written not in the angst of a broken heart but in the cold and calculating manner of a mathematician who’s “done the math” and come to his conclusions. As much as I hope, one day, to have a family, I see no reason to expect this.

Maybe the reason I can’t seem to find peace & contentment is because, quite simply, I’m a koala whose native land is ocean’s away, and how content can a pilgrim be far from home and alone in his wanderings? There’s more to it, I’m sure, but not less. As much as I try to forge some path going somewhere, and as much wrestling is involved in such forging, there remains that consistent thread running through it all. It’s what I want most, more than anything, and though I’ve tried to get rid of it, I just can’t. It’s always there, burning like an eternal flame, and peeling back the layers, what do you find? A beast imprisoned, rattling its cage and seeking to be free? No, you find a koala with a weak heart and fallen eyes, a wounded creature whose captivity has bled its resolve to fight. Peeling through the weathered journals I’ve kept for almost 13 years, I can’t deny that that which enflames my heart and crushes it at the same time, the desire clinging to my bones like a parasite, is the overarching dream of falling in love, getting married, and sharing my life with someone. 

A simple life with a simple love for a simple, old-fashioned girl. 

There it is, laid out for all to see, the most innate—dare we say primal?—desire of my heart. While I may be unsure of everything else, this much I know: for better or worse the deepest longing of my heart is to love and be loved, to find a helpmate, a life partner, a wife. “It is not good for man to live alone.” Countless heartaches, betrayals, and back-stabbings litter my pursuit of this, and skepticism runs deep. But skepticism may, in the end, just be an attempt to mend broken bones, my way of wrapping the wounds in gauze. This skepticism may be nothing more than some cerebral attempt to kill the dream because dreams “dead & gone” just don’t hurt as much. All I do know is that, for better or worse, hope’s stronger than skepticism, and I don’t want to be cynical. I want the cynicism to break, but I dare not let go for fear of detaching myself from reality and plummeting headfirst and with abandon into that chasm of hope, a chasm so deep that there may be no escape. In the end, skepticism may just be some fabrication, a coping mechanism of some sort, something I’ve built in my own heart and head to put up fences and hedges around hope to keep it from spreading like kudzu, to keep it from getting out of control. As much as cynicism may strangle life, its potency is nowhere near that of a hope dismantled.

Sometimes we just have to face the fact that nothing’s guaranteed, control over our fate is an illusion, and that sometimes you don’t get what you want or what you need. There was a time when I could shift the pressure off myself and onto God, hoping that he’d bring me someone in due time whom I would love with all that I have and who would love me likewise. But if I’m honest with myself, I have no reason to believe such a thing will happen. Stacking all our hopes and dreams on God is an optimistic outlook, and by that admission we should probably be wary, as the world is far from optimistic. Looking back over my life, where do I see God? I see him in my thoughts, I see him in my heart, I see him in my values and the way that I look at the world, but the one thing I do not see is him. 

I have on one hand a numerous number of unanswered prayers; and on the other I have answered prayers that can easily be explained by the cause-and-effect nature of our world. In other words, assigning credit to God for when prayers were answered is imposing another variable on an otherwise simplistic explanation. My life has panned out due to chance, my decisions, and the decisions of others; with these three factors, everything is so easily explained. Why bring a fourth factor into the mix when it’s not needed? All this to say, I don’t believe that God is looking out for me in this regard, I don’t believe that God has someone for me. I would love to believe that, absolutely, but I have no reason to believe it other than wanting to believe it: and desiring to believe something isn’t, I think, a good reason to believe it; and even worse is staking your life on something, your hopes on something, that you want to be true rather than something that can validate itself and stand up to scrutiny. The idea that God has someone for me and will bring us together in due time, an idea that I clung to for most of my life, is an idea that has absolutely no support in reality, and it’s for this reason that I dismiss it.

Am I stupid for wanting this, foolish for longing for a simple life with a simple love for a simple girl? Maybe, it’s quite possible. We koalas aren’t the sharpest. Be it stupid, foolish, blind, what-have-you, it remains nevertheless what I want more than anything, and that’s something to fight for. At times the hurt’s so great there seems no way out, and at times the defeats are so debilitating that I’m left crippled and nursing my wounds for a time. But always—always—I get back up and Keep Going. This hope’s too ingrained into the fabric of my being to be discarded, tossed away, dismantled. I’ve tried to do all that, I really have: but trying to kill this hope is like killing off a part of me. When’s all said and done, I’d be less of a person for it. I’m damned persistent and resilient, and I’ll try again, and again, and again. And maybe, somehow, that desire of my heart will be fleshed out in real life. I’ll stomach these disappointments, tend my wounds, try to learn a lesson or two, and Keep Going. Really, what else can I do?