my heart.

I don't know who I am. Some days I think that I am a loner, that guy who could spend the rest of his life alone and never developing anything like a relationship with another human being.

Some days I actually could do that. I could just pack it up, hop in my car and drive to where no one knows me and start over. But then I come to my senses and realize that I could never accomplish that because no matter where I am, I talk to people, when I talk to people I make friends, when I make friends I begin to desire deeper relationships, and when that happens I feel as though I should just pack up and move on to where no one knows me.

It is a vicious cycle that I walk. I have never gone so far as to just pack it up and leave. I have left parts of my life behind as I moved on to new things. It is much the same. As I look back I realize how much treasure I have left behind me in my old friends. Somewhere deep inside of me I have this pain of loss. I am usually able to repress it, to ignore it, to push it away so that I don't have to deal with it. Dealing with it would be far to painful to deal with.

Right now, I am at a point in my life where I think I have to pull this stuff out and deal with it NOW, before I end up ruining the rest of my life. I am realizing that I am a deeply emotional person, despite everything I have worked toward in my life. I am past that chaotic stage where I lost control and started acting like an idiot. Right now, right here, I am just plain frightened to death of the future and what it holds for me.

Looking back I can see the mistakes I have made and the events leading up to them are starting to fall into place as if I am watching a giant jigsaw puzzle of my life being assembled. I am beginning to see why I thought that I was incomplete without a wife, I am starting to put together the reason that, despite all the warning signs, I decided to do what I THOUGHT was the best course, rather than listening to God.

We are so conditioned to think that without another person we are only half of a whole. We are somehow incomplete unless we find our "soul mate". I was so driven by that that I never realized how special I was as a person. I never realized that I am not completed by another person, but I am already complete in Christ.

Now that it is so many years later and I am on the precipice of divorce I have found myself examining my life thus far, looking for where I went wrong. Suddenly I found myself re-experiencing those same feelings. Feeling as though I was incomplete without a female counterpart. It has only been in the last few days that I realized that it is okay if I am alone. I am a wonderful being all by myself. Now, realizing that, knowing it, and feeling it are three completely different things.

I know that deep within myself I desire to have someone. I believe that this is an innate thing that is placed within people. A desire to be with another human being. It is not that we need to be completed by another person, but we need to extend beyond our singularity and expand who we are to include another being.

I think that this is why so many relationships fail. We are yearning for another person, looking for that person who completes us, meanwhile we are offering up only part of a person. We have gotten to where we think that two people make a whole, that is wrong. Two people make two people. How can we even begin to search for another human to be with when we don't even know who we are yet? how can we ever expect anything besides failure if all we have to offer is an incomplete person who thinks that their resolution lies in the other? This is impossible.

I posted the lyrics to Iris by the goo goo dolls on my xanga. I have had it on repeat since then. I keep listening to it over and over trying to capture what it holds. It's not like I am dreaming about finding that person that the song is about. No, I am beyond that at this point. What I do want, however, is to feel what the songs implies. I want to be at that point where I am willing to just give up everything to be with someone... But at the same time, that thought in itself scares the hell out of me.

That is the baggage I carry with me I suppose. It's not like I am in the market for a relationship. I'm not out looking for someone. Heck, someone here at work suggested that I start dating, nothing serious, just messing around and having some fun. That doesn't even sound like an option to me. I don't think that I want to ever be "in the market".

I think that if I am to ever find anyone to be with then it will have to be something natural. I don't want to go looking for it. Right now I am just Jesse, a guy. I don't want to be half of a couple, even if that does mean being the 3rd wheel, or the 5th wheel, or even... gasp, the 7th wheel like has happened already.

I think I am finally okay with being single, at least, in thought. Whether my heart allows me to give up that yearning to "be with someone" has yet to be seen. I suppose it is much like breaking a habit, I have spent every day of my life with someone, either with my family or with my roommates, or with my wife. It will just take some adjusting to be with no one right now.

Please, please let me find happiness in this world without becoming consumed by my wants. Please allow me to see the real beauty of who I am as a person rather than seeing only my shortcomings as a single. Let me happily be just Jesse.





And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am