My sincere thanks to everyone who’s contacted me to offer
prayer and support. It genuinely does help to know that there are people who
care about me. And your prayers are helping too: I felt a lightening of my
burdens yesterday, unexpectedly and inexplicably.
I have to be careful in talking to people about what’s going
on, for discretion's sake. In fact, I’ve probably already said too much. But let me see if I can,
without revealing any more details, explain what’s going on.
Imagine you’ve got this friend. She’s sweet, and lovely, and
amazing; accomplished, blindingly intelligent, oh-so charming, and
intoxicatingly feminine. She’s like something from another age, when women were
women and men were men. Which is perfect, because you’ve always felt like you’d
been born in the wrong age: like you should have been a medieval knight, or a
gentleman in one of the ages of adventure and exploration. And she is
beautiful. Not the easy, flashy kind of beauty that grabs most men’s attention
right away, but a deep, rich, complex kind that many are unable to see. And the
fact that you see it makes you feel good about yourself. But you’re just
friends. Because, although you see all those things about her, you also see
that she’s too good for you, and so you don’t let yourself think of her that
way.
It’s a special friendship, though. You give her lots of
attention and compliments; you buy her things; you support her in everything
she does; you go out of your way to look out for her. It may seem strange to
others, but you’ve had this kind of friendship before, and it’s not about
trying to get anything from her. It’s just because you’re the kind of guy who
genuinely loves being good to women: taking care of them, doting on them,
making them feel safe, beautiful, special, and cherished. And she obviously
likes it; she shows her appreciation clearly, and even tells you plainly that
she likes the compliments and presents.
But, one day, it happens anyway. And it’s just like in the
stories. Cupid shoots you, and from one moment to the next, you’re in love.
Except Cupid doesn’t shoot you with a bow: he uses a friggin’ trebuchet. You’re
not just smitten, you’re flattened, like Wile E. Coyote under an anvil.
So, after struggling and debating with yourself for a bit,
you decide to tell her. You expect that your feelings will not be returned,
because, let’s face it, how could they be? And you also expect that it will ruin
your beautiful friendship. But it feels like a betrayal of her trust not to
tell her, so you do. Apologetically. But she, wonderful girl that she is, says
there’s nothing to be forgiven, and that she values your friendship. So you
keep trying to be friends.
But, predictably, it doesn't work. You try too hard, or
whatever, and things just keep getting more and more awkward and uncomfortable.
There are misunderstandings and sensitivities, and eventually you get to a
place where communication is impossible. You try backing off to give her space.
You don’t speak to her unless she speaks to you, and you avoid looking at her
because you don’t want to seem like you’re staring or watching her. You try
avoiding her altogether to give her time, although that means giving up
participating in most of the things you care about in your life. But all to no
avail.
You, however, keep trying. Cautiously, carefully, seeking
advice and counsel. Because you’re committed, not to trying to woo her, but to
trying to restore your friendship, or at least fellowship. Part of your heart,
of course, still hopes, or wishes rather, that maybe one day, somehow, she’ll
change her mind. But you know that’s not a possibility now or probably ever,
and you do nothing to try to force that issue. You just want her back in your
life, because you miss her.
Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, you find out that
she hates you: loathes the very thought of you. That she sees you as a creepy,
obsessive stalker, and wants absolutely nothing to do with you. That she's been living in a state of fear and anxiety, because of you. She’s wrong, of
course, but there’s nothing—nothing you
can do at this point to change her mind. All you can do is go away and leave
her alone forever.
It’s like the peripateia in a Greek tragedy: that moment
when the earth comes off its foundation and the hero’s life is completely
shattered. When he finds out that he’s married to his mother, or just killed
his wife, or whatever. And he gouges his own eyes out and runs off into the
wilderness to live as a hermit.
That’s where I am now. I haven’t gouged my eyes out, but I’m
at a point where a diagnosis of terminal cancer would be met with a heavy sigh
of relief. I only sleep in short spurts, constantly waking up with the
horrifying realization of what I’ve done. My heart is so broken that it
literally, physically hurts. My prayers are mostly just groaning and crying
out. And of course, the situation is worsened by the fact that going away means
losing everything in my life that means anything to me. That I must abandon what I’d
finally found, which I’d been looking for my whole life: a place to fit in, to
feel loved and accepted. And I had wholeheartedly believed that it was the Lord's doing; that he was guiding me in this new life, and I was growing and prospering. And by the fact that this life is one that I was just
rebuilding. Because this kind of thing happened to me once before.
The Lord healed my heart, or has been healing it to be more
accurate, after the last time. But I can’t even conceive of starting this
process all over again, and trying to rebuild another life somewhere else. I feel like I've got absolutely
nothing worth living for.
So that’s what you can be praying for me about. I’m trying
to hold on, waiting for God to come through for me somehow or other, and trying
to believe that this is all some sort of lesson or test. In my better moments,
anyway. I have bad days and worse days.
