Requiem for a wedding.

I wonder why people make wedding receptions feel like a goodbye party.

I recently attended one for a dear, dear friend. Let me tell you about this friend. She was someone who, against all odds and reason, became my friend and was there for me during a difficult time in my life. Almost every day of last summer, she loved me as if I were her brother and helped me when I needed it the most. And I think I’ll probably never have that with her again. Things always change when people get married, which was all I could think about while I was at her wedding reception, and she was as beautiful and jovial and alive as always. Her story goes on without me. Exeunt: I have left her tale as a character, probably forever. Although I know we will probably speak again, it won’t be like it was in my last summer in the college town I loved…sitting there listening to her, and having her listen to me.

Sometimes when I wonder why it feels like the universe has conspired to make me exactly the strange person that I am, and destiny conspired to bring me to the people and places I needed to be at, that I was chosen for a role in people’s lives that brings so many mixed feelings. I met someone recently who sympathized with me on the feeling that our lives are not our own, but for her it was a joyful, pleasant thing. I would have to say that reading this blog would deceive my readers into believing that it is not so with me. I said mixed feelings: this is true. It was a joy to meet my friend, as it is a joy to have helped her in her times of struggle, and to have her in return help me last summer…all because of chance, it would seem. But the 'saying goodbye' is as painful as the 'getting to know' is joyful. I always lose as much as I gain. And that’s when I write about it. Because, what else is there to do? You can’t go back in time. So I immortalize my memory in type.

I do know that it is not truly destiny, chance, or the universe, but God that has done these wonderful things to me and through me. But as much as I wish it did, this has never brought me much comfort. Even when I sit in silence over the thought that God loves me and that my day will come, it never quite overcomes the feeling that the sort of happy ending I see at weddings is not for me, never for me. I darkle, I tinct, the Man in Black from the Dark Tower would say. It just doesn’t seem to “fit” the theme of my story. My life is about moving, growing, building an empire of love and friendship, watching it topple, and then building it all over again. Perseverance, not permanence; truth, not trust; cynicism, and not certainty.

But, of course, I still want it. Why not? It’s what I do. It’s all I do.

And so I go on as I always do, and I always make the choices that seem like they are the only choices…and when things go well, they go well. When things don’t go well, all I can ask is “what else was I supposed to do?” And there is never a reply.

For now though, I am happy. I am tired and happy, and I could not ask for better than that.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for a change in theme.

"Ka is a wheel."

“Ka is a wheel; its one purpose is to turn. The spin of ka always brings us back to the same place, to face and reface our mistakes and defeats until we can learn from them. When we learn from the past, the wheel continues to move forward, towards growth and evolution. When we don’t, the wheel spins backward, and we are given another chance. If once more we squander the opportunity, the wheel continues its rotation towards devolution, or destruction.”

I continue to be amazed by life's circular nature.

Ka, in the quote above, is a word meaning destiny or fate from Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a seven eight book series chronicling the adventures of Roland Deschain, the last and greatest gunslinger, and his quest to find the Dark Tower, save it, siege it, and climb to the top. Roland's world is dying...as the Dark Tower is threatened, the fabric of existence is wearing away. Even time itself ceases to work correctly. The demons that have chased Roland his entire life and killed all of his friends are slowly revealed to be the very demons behind the slow demolition of the Dark Tower...which they wish to destroy so that they may rule over the darkness left behind.  Roland - the cold but romantic prodigy and representative of all that is good - frequently must travel beyond the realm of his post-apocalyptic world to others, where his foes follow his fast hands and blazing eyes to their deaths, in order to save his world and all the worlds.

But in the end of the story, Roland's ka...his destiny...is revealed to be circular. It is his curse. As it is mine.

Well, I'm being dramatic because that's what re-reading The Dark Tower does to me, but really. It seems as though every other year I am undergoing the same trial - but in a different time and with different characters. I get what I always say I want - a chance to do it over again. It's amazing and aggravating all at the same time.

Two years ago I made a mistake that proved to be both wonderful and terrible - and wonderously reversible. For the most part. However, again I am pressed into the same situation at exactly the same season and mode of life. And this time, in the words of Inigo Montoya...I will not fail.

But sometimes, I wonder if how I plan to do things the second (third, fourth, really) time is really the best way after all. What if, indeed, I am only making things worse? How long will the cycle end? But then again, this is the sort of thing that, as a friend pointed out, "you only have to get right once." And that is a comforting thought.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of linear ka.

Control.

If you ever find yourself upset about something only to reply in your mind "Such is life" I think you've reached where I am in this acceptance thing.

I think too much about the way life should be, only to realize not long after that even as long as I've thought otherwise, I've never really had much control over my own circumstances. Things will just be as they will be no matter how hard I try to change them.

A friend of mine is moving away. It just came out of nowhere, like a summer rain. A friend that I wanted to make a part of my life in a significant way. But I know...I know that even though I've done everything I could to make that happen, it would not. It just wouldn't. Fate, destiny, God's will, call it what you want. That can only be the answer.

I puzzle over why my life is the way it is. Don't misunderstand, I am happy about some of the details. Others, less. This is mere genuine curiosity. As I don't really see too many things as mere coincidences, I know there must be a purpose behind it all...why the best friends I have are not the best friends I tried to have - I am grateful for the best friends I have never expected, but in other ways I must wonder why it never worked out between myself and someone whom I felt connected to in a special way.

Someone told me I like having control the other day, and I agreed with them immediately. But after I thought about it for a while, I could actually care less about most things. I don't mind the weather, I don't care who's in charge of my school program, I don't care who cleans the kitchen or how. I don't care about most random things that can change throughout my day, really. What I want to control is actually just people. And that's the one thing I've never had control over, though from time to time I fancied I actually could.

So many things just come out of the blue. Conversations, strange circumstances, accidents, insults. Try as I might to have some kind of master plan for marriage and life long friendships, it has never, ever really seemed to matter what I had planned. Even when I was discerning the priesthood, it didn't seem to matter because I ended up in a relationship not long after.

I suppose I could be mad about it. I'm certainly disappointed. But mostly, I'm just waiting. Trying to be patient. Watching the waters settle, and then flow in a certain direction...and then switch. I feel like the captain of a ship who has believed for a long time that he was an expert navigator, only to discover that his ship, in fact, has just been slowly sinking as he heads in a completely unknown direction.

Such is life.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for patient acceptance.