It wasn't meant to be

Many little pieces of "wisdom" seem (to me) to be kind of selectively blind. Take this old chestnut: "it wasn't meant to be." That's always flung around in reference to something that—for whatever reason—ended. It wasn't meant to be? What do you think it was?? It was as real as anything, for as long as it lasted.

Just because something doesn't last forever, doesn't mean it wasn't worth your while.

And just because something doesn't last forever, doesn't mean it wasn't meant to be. Nothing is meant to be forever. Let's savour what is, while it is. And when it ends—maybe soon, maybe almost never (but never quite 'never')—let's not pretend that the ending negated the experience.

The Ruins of These Thirty Years

They say that if something doesn't matter in ten years, it doesn't matter now. They say this to take the pressure off of present stresses, to bring "perspective."

But there is another perspective, equally true. If it matters now, it will matter more in ten years. It will gather 'matter' like a snowball, and in ten years, twenty years, it will be just as sharp a sting, but with the interest of decades of festering.

They don't tell you that you can spare yourself years of distress and possibly permanent sorrow or harm. Fix the foundations when you can, so you don't find yourself in ruins down the road.

Lifer

Only one hairdresser ever inspired the loyalty in me to return time after time for over five years. She was a single mother of a teenaged son, a multitalented artist, and a downright beautiful and genuine human.

During one appointment, we chatted about Las Vegas, as I was looking forward to my first Vegas trip. She told me I would have a blast. "There's nothing as fun as girlfriends," she said. I didn't mention that I was traveling alone and meeting up with some people I had never met before. "One of my girlfriends is a lifer, like me," she said. "We went to Vegas and joked that we should get married. I really think platonic marriage should be a thing."

Not being very well informed on her personal life, I had to turn her words over in my mind long after I had left the salon. I was stuck on the word "lifer"—what did it mean? What former circumstances would have prompted this attitude?

Her idea of platonic marriage also intrigued me. It shouldn't be a foreign idea, but it is. You don't realize how hyper-sexualized the world is until you spend time as a single. Everything seems to be focused on romantic relationships and families: advertising, media, social activities, conversations, tv and music and art. Anything that doesn't elevate romance is only the more conspicuous for the steadfast avoidance, and comes across as the resentful thought-child of some spurned being. As a single, you feel out of place, unnatural, terribly visible, like a bright red actor in a black and white film. All this fixation on relationships and romance creates an issue in your life, where a nonissue once stood.

Maybe that's one facet of what some of us singles are—spurned beings. But if so, it's a small facet. To think that a person's life experiences doesn't make them evolve to be larger than any label or category is a rookie mistake. Experience and time will teach you otherwise. More and more, I'm getting to understand what being a 'lifer' means to me, and how it is isn't an oppressive label. Rather, it's an open door of life opportunities, and emotional and physical freedom, and optimism.

Last year, she went on sick leave and never returned. I haven't found a stylist since then who can measure up, and more importantly haven't found one with such genuine wisdom.

A Little Context

“Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful.”

― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Let me set the stage, so that you have some insight into the mind behind my ramblings.

The hardest lesson in life is that the deepest, purest feelings are sometimes un-reciprocated. Sometimes the thing that seems most meant to be—the thing that is most meant to be—just... isn't. Or maybe you held it in your hands for a moment, like a stray sunbeam, before it slipped away despite your best efforts to gently hold it close. It's one of life's illogically unfair situations, like a night of insomnia when all you want is sleep, but it doesn't want you.

Worst of all, it's not the sort of lesson that you can learn from, because it didn't arise from a mistake. It is never incorrect to follow your heart. You just can't help your feelings, you can't think your way out of them. You can hide or stifle them, but they're still there. They'll always inform your behaviour, your outlook,  your attitude, your contentment.

The hard lesson is learning that this is the case, and living a fulfilling life nonetheless. Keeping the golden memories of that handful of sunshine, knowing that you are richer for it, and trusting that more sunshine is in the forecast.

It's a hell of a way to run a railroad.

I lived with my soulmate for over 5 years when my sunbeam slipped away. The possibility of this lesson had never hit me before, and I didn't know what to make of it. It's been almost four years since then, and I'm only just starting to understand it. In the earliest days of my darkness, a very good friend gave me this advice: "Sometimes things happen that look so dreadful and isolating when you're living through them, but later in life you realize that much joy came only because they happened." It was meager consolation at the time, but stuck with me.

So, now I consider myself immensely rich. Rich because of those years when I was swept up in following my heart. Richer still because that soulmate (yes, I maintain that we are still soulmates) is now my unconditional best friend, and our friendship would never have grown so deep in that previous time. And richest of all, because even if I can't help still feeling the way I felt ten years ago, life is still beautiful—more beautiful than ever. And that's an ultimate triumph.