We've been married almost four years now. It went by quickly. What I wanted to write here, before I forget, is the pearl of wisdom that just came to me whilst looking at a wedding picture just now of us raising champagne glasses:
I laughed just then, because I realize how wrong I was from the start. I was so afraid of marriage, because it would strip me of my being alone. I realize that most people, or at least, many people, get married to leave their loneliness--to always be together. But I am not most people.
I was afraid of having to sacrifice the core, quiet, completely whole and compact self that I am. The part that doesn't need or want anyone, anything. The isolation I adored seemed selfish.
But I was so wrong. For nearly four years now, I have been mourning the loss of self and trying to melt into something indistinguishable, wrongly equating formlessness with selflessness and service.
We (husband and I) have been in pain because of my incorrect conclusion and where acting upon this conclusion has taken us.
More than anything, Noa wants me to live fully, because he loves me. He longs for, prays for, me to "be happy." What he really means, though, is to be something, to do something, to become all of me that I can be. To take a form, to define the lines boldly. To be.
Ever since we got serious (thought we might get married), I have worried about losing him in the distance as I sprint towards where my inner compass points as true north. We did talk about it once, in the car, parked at a gas station across the street from the ice skating rink (another story for later). We sat there for an hour, going back and forth about hypotheticals.
'What if I want to move to a foreign country?'
'What if I want to be a missionary?'
'What if I want to start a business, or a non-profit?'
'What if I want to go save the world, and it takes all of me?'
In that car, he told me the truth. I wasn't ready for it. It didn't seem fair, but I knew that didn't matter.
'If you want to go to a foreign country, or save the world, you have to lead it--it's just not my thing. But I will go with you anywhere and support you with anything. I will be your co-pilot,' he said.
'How can I be the pilot? Shouldn't you be the pilot? I kind of want you to be the pilot as the man.'
And we did get married, so I have tried to die inside. To wait for a miraculous stirring in his heart to dream big and shake up the world. Something is budding--God is doing great things and is changing his heart to want to serve. But leadership is a few years out.
I don't have to wait to be me for him to be him. Doesn't that make sense? To think that somehow God needed my sacrifice, like penitence for his heart to grow? Where the heck did I ever think that my sacrifice was good enough for anything? It is only by Christ that anything is done: 'Apart from me you cannot do anything'--'I am the vine, you are the branches...he who remains in me will bear great fruit...'
So I need to be attached to the vine. I need to live fully, abundantly. For all of us. Fruitless me is hurtful to me, God, the world, and the man I love.
