It is strange to be 28 and find one's life mostly over. I do not mean by this that I anticipate a young death; on the contrary, if genes and lifestyle are any prognosticators, chances are I'll hit my centenary before the reaper comes a-scything. And I do not mean to indicate a general dysthymia either. Granted my heart aches, but this aching is neither odd nor enfeebling. Scars keep the ego from becoming a tyrant, and this heartache, which does not fade and--I'm coming to accept--may haply be permanent, is but a much-needed scar on my soul. If the heartache helps me think more humbly, behave more thoughtfully, and be a more loving person, I am glad for it; I shall sing its praises. I do not want to be the patient who begrudges my medicine its taste.
Yet my life does feel over insofar as I can no longer envision it following any of the normal routes, nor meeting any of the ordinary goals. When I was a little girl, I had a notion of what life meant, and of what it consisted, and of how it played out. My notion was not so very far removed from Shakespeare's "seven ages" of man, only I switched out the "soldier" for the "artist." I would progress, so I thought, from child to lover to creative force to wise woman to dreamy dotage and finally to sleep, with no stage ever departing me, but rather with all stages aggregating, like so many sedimentary layers, each casting their subtle influence and shaping the stages piled on top.
Yet now this notion is all gone. I had a husband; I was a wife; but that is at an end, and I cannot see myself being in a romantic relationship again. I venerate Eros too highly (I know C. S. Lewis would scold me for it, but I do). Sentimental irrationalist that I am, I would rather never entertain kisses again than kiss any I am not convinced is meant to be thusly kissed, and as by "meant" I mean something along the lines of "Fate-appointed," the odds of me ever kissing again seem unlikely. And I confess this is odd, for in my marriage it was always Wade (admittedly a thorough-going determinist) who talked of "destiny" and "fate" where our relationship was concerned, and it was always I who argued against him. There is even a sonnet, in an incipient sonnet sequence I attempted four years after taking my vows, that addresses this contrast:
My love was never one without conditions,
I said as much right from the very first,
And yet you ask me now for such remissions
As would see my thoughts on this score reversed?
You scowl at me and tell me I'm too cold,
Too scientific in my heart's affairs;
I know of romance naught, you do me scold,
To calibrate the weight of Cupid's cares.
What sort of love is mine that does not live
Immortal but some day may fade away?
What sort of love, you ask, that will not give
Eternal vows but lets itself decay?
The truest form, say I, that love can take:
The love of man, and not love for love's sake.
Yet it is Wade who, in the wake of our separation, has sought comfort in the arms of another, and it is I who look to the nun's life because I am so intent on keeping Eros and all of his rituals sacred. I, who refused to believe in destinies, would now apparently rather surrender all the touted consolations of coupledom than act contrary to the belief that such destinies might be a reality.
More than anything else I am terrified by the thought that things might be without meaning. This feeling gets stronger and stronger as I get older. I do not know how to live in a meaningless world.
I do not see myself again in a romantic relationship, yet neither do I see myself doing any of the other things my young self saw my elder self doing. I used to dream of going to Oxbridge and becoming a highly esteemed so-and-so, someone who contributed something really worthwhile and memorable to the world, a winner of Nobel prizes, a name for the history books. Yet now I desire more than anything simply to do good and die quietly. Like Jean Valjean, I have the feeling of one who has stolen a loaf of bread and two candelabras, and whose life should be now devoted to reparations, and whose gravestone should be unvisited and without name. And I say this not out of despair of myself; I am not trying to cut all my ties with the world; I am not covetous of total abnegation; I am not craving escape. The do-good-and-die-quietly path is simply the path that most appeals to me, the one in which I feel I shall do the most benefit for both my fellow man and my soul.
It is for this reason that I now wish to study philosophy for my PHD. I shall not be a big fish in a small pond in philosophy, as I might have proven (with sufficient effort and ambition) in a PHD English program. And I might not have much hope of a career afterwards, but the career is no longer the point. I simply wish to learn. I wish to acknowledge my ignorance about everything, and to bow my head, and, with a humble curiosity, begin at last to learn. From scratch. From the beginning. I want to begin my lessons.
I am 28 and my life is mostly over. I am glad. I am 28. I shall scrub myself clean in spring water. I shall put on a fresh shift. I shall come with blank sheets to the school-house. I shall begin my lessons.
No comments:
Post a Comment