28 July 2013

All By Myself (Don't Wanna Be)

Bridget Jones's Diary opens with credits rolling over Bridget lounging around her apartment smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, listening  to the song referenced in the the title of this post. Jones is established, from the opening shots, as a woman who is tired of being alone and we spend the rest of the film (and it's sequel) watching her work out how to alleviate this awful state of loneliness, alone-ness, solitude, what have you.

Jones has a circle of close friends in whom she confides all of her fears and hopes, but it is the man--make that the MAN as capital letters traditionally dictates importance--who will complete her in every way. And she spends the film searching for him among the over-abundant number of emotional fuckwittage cases in London.  She believes finding the right man will make everything okay.  But, just like losing weight or winning the lottery, getting what you want (the MAN) doesn't mean YOU are any different.  You're the same person you've always been in a new set of circumstances.

Blogger Hannah posted about her husband not being her soulmate last week. Her ideas are rooted in the misconception that God plans everything for our lives, including the mate who will enrich, fulfill, and rock us with desire for all our lives.  It's a pretty great take on what the mid 90s to early 2000s Evangelical movement sold Christian kids in America.  As I read it this morning, followed by the new Psychology Today cover story ("What Happy People Do Differently"), it hit me that I have been living with some of the same future-fixes they both reference.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt lonely. I can feel it in a crowd full of people just as intensely--sometimes more--than when I am alone.  I have a sense of being other, separate, removed that I can't shake no matter how many parties I go to, close friends I have, or classrooms full of kids I teach.  It's just a natural state of being for me.  

Like Bridget, and like Hannah's younger self, I have often imagined that finding the MAN would make all of this isolation fade away, that somehow he would fill the corners in the giant room of my heart and suddenly there wouldn't be space to hide in anymore.  I am pretty sure I have found that man, to my utter shock and thankfulness each day, but it turns out he can be in the giant room, laughing and talking and twirling me around in it until I am dizzy with joy and love, and there's still emptiness.

He and I have a wonderful relationship that is stronger and deeper with each passing day.  Through being with him I have realized that what I really want--in all my closest connections--is intimacy.  Not all night kisses, hot breathing and tangled sheets intimacy, though all of that is simply lovely, but the kind of intimacy between two people that exists when you share everything without judgment, where you turn to each other first  to share your greatest accomplishments and deepest heartbreaks.  The kind of intimacy that means no matter how hard something is, knowing you have one another to turn to halves the difficulty. 

I could chronicle all the reasons why trusting people is hard. And I'd bet all my reasons are the same as yours. Betrayals, petty nothingness, our own judgment turning out to be terrible when we least expected it.  It's all universal and it's all so terribly personal. 

When Hannah married, she realized the beauty of choosing each day to love the man who became her husband, the joy of working towards a life with him, and the reality that small choices each day kept them together, connected to God and each other.  When Bridget finally gets out of her own way and kisses Mark Darcy in the snow outside the bookshop, she finds herself blissfully happy and connected.  And so, I suppose, that's what I am ultimately trying to find.  A way to feel connected to the world at large so that I don't feel invisible when the loneliness birds fly into my heart.  

So, today, I am going to try to live in what feels connected now.  Not what may happen in the future to make things better, not how the MAN can fix everything for me (because that's too much pressure on him and, honestly, not what I want).  Today, I am going to try to trust myself a little more and to shine a brighter light in that room so that, even if the dark corners don't quite disappear, I can begin to be less afraid of them.

1 comment:

  1. This is such an incredibly powerful post because of its truth. And, because I relate to it so well. Your description of emptiness - even in a crowded room - speaks volumes to me. I love that you are learning to trust yourself more and working to shine your fabulous light to the dark corners. You're incredibly inspiring to me today. :)

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