JW: Anam Cara and Deep Water

Taking the plunge into deeper water. Today, I committed to catching up on newsletter posts, and immediately got side-tracked by love. 

I believe that, if this journey is going to bring us the boon we've set out to find, we need to grapple with this highly freighted subject. Anam Cara has opened a door and exposed some confusion for both of us. I hope it helps us have honest and productive conversation around this scary topic.

The post I was working on was a list of journal prompts and I decided I needed to walk my talk by picking one and journaling about it. The result shows up below in the indented, italicized area. The related part of the newsletter post begins:

Since isolation and feeling alone is a common theme in my life and journal, I decided to write about the prompt: “I am not alone.” It was a challenge because I am alone. Having been single since the death of my husband seventeen years ago, I do not have the love connection that, ideally at least, comes from a having a life partner. Yet, I believe fervently in love as the ultimate transformative and life-engaging force. Where does that leave me?

A quick Google search turned up a Pew Research Center note that said a growing share of American adults are living single, with 38% of American adults between the ages of 25 and 54 not married or living with a romantic partner. My guess is that even more adults over 54 are single.

So, what do single people do with the human need to love and be loved? Pets and family probably fill the gap for many people, but what do those of us who do not have pets or close family members do? This launched a question and a possible quest. In my journal, as I thought about the prompt I am not alone, I wrote:

True - not true? I still feel basically alone. I recently met someone who made me wonder if he might be the one who would make me feel whole. Now, I’m starting to understand that feeling whole is a choice I make by accepting and loving all the pieces of myself, and finding something outside myself that I love so deeply that I feel connected to and a part of the whole. 

I need to know that love can come in forms other than love for one other human being. On an intellectual basis, I know this is true, but a deeper part of me immediately asks “Is this true?”

As part of the process of exploring this question I ended the post with:  

Here’s the question for those of you who are living single:

What do you love so much it makes you feel whole? 

Until recently, I think my answer has been to believe that I don't need love, that I can live without it. It seems that our journey has opened me to the truth that I am human and I do need to love and be loved. Where this is going to take me I don't now but I'm willing to keep digging deeper and have hope that this journey we're on will help reveal some answers ... for both of us.