Heather's Journal #67. "I'm gonna marry that boy someday." April 22, 2008

67

“I’m gonna marry that boy someday.”

April 22, 2008

Oh life… is so confusing.  But that’s no surprise.  Happyness is such a broad term that many forget where to find it.  Some might say it can be a mental things which is what I choose to believe.  It’s the one thing I’m trying to give my fingertips to… something I know is just too perfect to stay.  I don’t understand how something like happyness can seem so accesable but still be so far away from so many people in this world.  It comes & goes with me.  Right now I can’t decide if it’s fading away or here to stay4 a while.  I’m trying my hardest to keep a strong hold on it… I wish I just didn’t have2 try.  The only thing that’s holding me back is because I feel so lonely.  I don’t exactly know why.  Seems to be impossible to be lonely in a house of 16, but I guess it finds me everyday.  Well, let’s pray it stays here….

I will strive to be better.

In Christ,

Heather Marie Lee

Dear Heather,

I think I once said that happiness is elusive…. Maybe I’m right. :-)

Don Miller, that author I like who wrote Blue Like Jazz,  wrote about lonliness.  I thought it was interesting.  He said,

“I no longer think being in love is the polar opposite of being alone.  I say that because I used to want to be in love again as I assumed this was the opposite of loneliness.  I think being is love is an opposite of loneliness, but not the opposite.  There are other things I crave when I am lonely, like community, like friendship, like family.  I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail.  Romance can’t possible carry all that we want it to.”

“Tony the Beat Poet says the words alone, lonely and loneliness are the three most powerful words in the English language.  I agree with Tony.  Those words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst.  But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.”  (p. 151-52)

Isn’t it funny that a 30ish-year-old man has some of the same thoughts as a 15-year-old girl and a 40ish-year-old mom?  He’s saying what I said to you much earlier in our letters – romance and those butterflies fade much too quickly.    Real relationships have to be based on more than that exciting feeling that attracts us to someone.  That feeling can happen over and over again – but when it doesn’t last, we feel small and ugly and insignificant (to use your words).

And Don’s friend Tony has it right too.  “Alone, lonely and loneliness are three very powerful words about the soul.  When our soul is lonely, it doesn’t matter who is around us.  We could be in a crowd of a million and feel that desperation that comes with being lonely in the soul.” 

Feeding the soul is far different than feeding the body.  We feed our soul spiritually.  We feed our bodies physically. 

I love you.

Mom