With my last breath

“I can’t help but think that if I saw his face again, felt his anger again, and bore the weight of his stoic pejoratives, that I would quietly move to the ledge and step off,” she told me.

“I feel insignificant and invisible most of the time. I was okay with that. But when she left me, it was like she solidified it. Meeting her was like breathing for the first time. Now I am just grasping for air because I feel like I’m drowning. I feel lost and alone,” she shared.

In the beginning they felt safe, they felt known – even accepted for the first time, and deeply loved. And then it all went very, very dark.

The thing that I’ve been thinking about more and more is this sense of needing to and getting closer to letting go of what I want my life to look like. All the crushing blows of attempting to share love with someone are pushing me to believe that this kind life isn’t possible. The more I close my eyes and try to envision it now, the more all I see is darkness.

But there’s this small little light that’s coming from far away and it’s getting bigger. It doesn’t have any form to it, but it’s moving closer to me. I’m beginning to think that little light is God’s will.

I don’t know what that will is yet, but I do know that when I ask myself the question what do I want more than anything for people say at the end of my life, it is that I made them feel loved, valued, and protected. This is reassuring in a way. I know I am able to do each of those things without a partner who loves me back.

I want a partner, badly. But I’m still able to do what’s most important to me.

I keep thinking my cross to bear might be singleness. I’ve always been fearful that it was going to be this way, and people keep telling me not to give up hope. That I should keep believing and that if God gave me the desire for marriage, he will give it to me. I nod, but deep down I don’t really trust that it’s true.

There’s a sad and grieving group of us that can only understand what living this way feels like. Like we’re out in a dark ocean and waves keep crashing over us. Like we’re fighting just to breathe let alone hang on to hope. And then I ask myself, “Who is going to be there for the other people who are feeling exactly this way? Who is going to be there to hold their hand and empathize? Who is going to be there to keep them from stepping off the ledge?”

I don’t want this to be my calling, whether it’s forever or for a season. It’s painful, and it feels unfair. But then I look around and see the truth in other people’s lives. Hardly anything is fair!

So, I turn back toward the little light, and I think only one thing. If I’m called to love, value and protect others, I would rather live life giving that away than die taking away another’s chance at hope.