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Lesson Seventy-five Years in the Making

The Lesson I Didn't Learn As a Young Woman

By Scout CloudPublished 4 years ago 6 min read
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I was a virgin when I married at twenty. I don't recommend it to anyone. Mama told me that I should wait for marriage to experience sex. Looking back, I have no memory of being either a friend or a lover to the man I married. We consumated our marriage on our honeymoon. It was nonplussed, except it hurt. Our marriage lasted less than four years. We never really became friends.

Somewhere along the way, I was introduced to Andrew Greeley, a Catholic Priest and writer. His book, THE FRIENDSHIP GAME, presented me with a challenge that drove my relationships over the course of my life. I always wondered at his wisdom about relationships in that he was sworn to celibacy. However, he claimed wisdom through his years of counseling couples in his church. He also left the church many years later and wrote wonderful romance novels.

His central teaching simply advised that we take the time to become really good friends prior to "making love". I'm seventy-five and I'm only now learning the value of this lesson. True and abiding friendship is a foundation for the pluses and minuses of life.

I'm now married to my true soulmate. Somehow, mostly unnoticed, a song of intimacy invited us together. Without command, Spirit began to drive our relationship. This precious circle of Us makes my life so much richer. One person can only see so far. Two even farther.

We each came with our own special gifts, but the gift of Us together, is now bigger than the sum total of all that we are. We know beyond any shadow of a doubt that we love and revere and embrace each other “just as we are without one plea”. We speak even the simplest of things through our hearts. There have been times when just each other's presence made my imperfections bearable. Without knowing it,we have each helped the other build and rebuild ourselves, always to be true to our hearts.

Together it is impossible to feel righteous or feel like a failure. We each have mountains of failures and successes behind us, and with the loving spirit of our ever growing friendship, each failure and success is able to become an engine of wisdom. Within our small circle “each to their own” is a price too high to pay. We can silently lean on each other as a temple of unspoken love and support.

Together we have grown through things that we probably never mentioned. Together we have fed our Spirits. In this small circle we bring our pluses and our minuses. From our mistakes and our successes we have cooked a life better because of US. We have learned that life is not “happily ever after”. Life is “as it is.” And because we have created a circle where “as it is”, is our only option, we have created this home to come back to. I am eternally grateful. Forever and ever! Amen! I am finally, at age seventy-five, learning to play THE FRIENDSHIP GAME. I've arrived here having learned things.

We have learned the importance of finding what we most love and investing our lives in learning all about it. We have learned that nothing has meaning until it changes what we think and who we are.

We have learned that love lasts as long as we keep caring about what each other thinks and feels. We have learned that marriage is more than two people. It is a community, a village.

We have learned that HOME is the experience where we are free to be ourselves. We have learned that our greatest power tool is CHOICE! We have learned that the only thing life requires of us is to live with the consequences of our choices.

We have learned that “like attracts like” so we learn to choose the greatest love of all and then work like hell to make it last. We have learned that in the mystery of romance, we still have to solve problems together. We learned that if we lose the romance, we lose the power to go through hard times. We have learned that marriage is not two people dashing across a bridge in rice and flowers, but rather the ability to build bridges together with their own hands.

We refuse to indulge ourselves in despair. We have learned that resentment devours our energies. We have learned that we must grow from our failures or perish. We recognize the fruitlessness of wishing back anything that is lost.

We are free to change our mind and we know that when we change our mind, everything changes. We know our thoughts direct our actions. We are responsible for our choices and attitudes.

We escape the insipid habit of blaming others or ourselves. We ask for what we want. We ask what others’ want. We love the feeling of everyone winning.

We recognize the pain beneath our anger, and we dare to let our tears cool the fires of our hurt. We move to the center of pain, know it and allow it to disappear. We give our anger to the sky where there is lots of room. We go alone to spill our words of concern and make room for the void that welcomes the solution to any problem.

We face our fears, and recognize fear as an invitation to grow by learning something new. We release our attachment to ego, knowing that we would rather be happy than right.

We have learned that to figure out the solution to any problem, we need to feel more. Our hearts must be involved. We must release the problem from the grips of our minds where it only grows bigger and we grow smaller.

We’ve learned the power of intentions. What we intend will surely manifest in our lives. We acknowledge the mirrors in our lives, and accept our responsibility in every manifestation.

We hold others’ hands yet think our own thoughts. We love deeply and with abandon. We look always to make the contents of our mind a happy hunting ground.

We honor ourselves as unique representations of God. We understand God manifests in every color, shape and inclination. Truly, we have come to know that what we do to another we do to ourselves.

We hone our energy to vibrate with the pulse of love that resonates deep within our soul. . We follow our homing device that draws us always to love one another. We show up to join hands in the Sacred Circle.

We walk with and honor the balance born of our wholeness. We have come to know the power that is Peace, and now we pass it on.

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