An Old, Gray Wolf
One can learn a lot from being alone. Especially when he discovers he doesn’t want to be.
I won’t pretend that this Thanksgiving holiday wasn’t a tough one. Honestly, they all have been since my divorce in 2012. I spend those days I would love to spend with my children doing “halfsies”, that is spending half the holiday with them before they leave. This year, as has been the case for the last 8, I made a turkey-day dinner on Thanksgiving eve and then a breakfast on the Day of Gratitude.
My kids, though, are older now. Meg, 26, lives 1500 miles away. Gianna, 16, worked a full shift on both days, so I didn’t get to see her. It was Mike and me, and while spending time with my 14 year old is great, I did miss the other two-thirds of my tribe. I miss Meg all of the time, but now I see my family tree further whittled away every year, and it always unnerves me.
The older they get, the more mortal I seem to be.
As Mike got out of my car on Thursday, it dawned on me a that the already too-fast-loss-of-time-with-my-littles is being sped up by those halfsies. I only get half the time with them as it is, and that time is evaporating much too quickly.
After the car door shut, I ended up in my shell for the rest of the day and the following. I didn’t want to hear from anyone, or do anything. It’s that resolve that exists inside of me, that growl, that has helped me survive. It’s what I know as the wanting of nothing around me and it has been part of me since the dawn of my memory. It’s how I’ve learned to deal with my thoughts, sadness, and the frustration that comes along with life.
For the first time solitude seemed fake. I wanted people around me. Not people necessarily, but people I love and care about. As my family tree whittles away I know that doesn’t mean I need to be alone. In fact, it seems to mean that I want something unusual.
I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to be the thing that happens after the thing that happens. I don’t want to follow the main event, I want to be in the main event. I don’t want to be an add-on, or a third wheel, or the odd-person-tag-along. I want to be someone that is needed, and wanted, by those who have a choice.
Or someone who has a choice. This is not necessarily a crowd-sourcing event.
In all honesty, this realization was something new for me. I’ve always been good alone regardless of what day it was. I related well when Rocky said “Yeah, to you (it’s Thanksgiving). To me, it’s Thursday.” Yet, as I get older I realize that being alone isn’t the panacea it was once. Instead, I want to share who I am with someone who not only wants me there on Thursday, but also on Thanksgiving.
It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of the movie Into the Wild. After years of tramping and traveling alone, the main character (Chris) realizes something as he exists in near-death aloneness. With tears in his eyes he scribbles something profound.
He knows it’s time for him to leave his Alaskan aloneness. For him, though, this realization happens too late. The spring swells have trapped him in that aloneness, and he dies in the prison of his own liberation, unable to use what he has discovered.
That prison isn’t in the lack of knowing. It’s in the inability to do what you know, to live the path you know to be the right one. We can be so full of knowledge yet lack the wisdom that comes with living that knowledge.
I have no desire to die in such a condition. I want to share what I have learned. Part of me is filled with vast and wild revelations, meaningful embraces and sensible “I’m going to make love to you until my body falls apart” abandon. I don’t want to scribble postscripts about sharing happiness, I want to feel the love and warmth of those who are happy I’m there.
I want to love, and be in love, on the top of every mountain I come across and along every steep, winding road I travel on.
What is best about sharing the many lessons I have learned is that there is no textbook from which to study or book to be read. There is my hand to be held, my lips to be kissed, my ear for you to whisper in and my shoulder for you to lean. That is where the sharing is. For the One, The lessons don’t exist in a lecture, or in a story. They exist in each and every act of love shared in private, in public, and when looking into the eyes of God.
The rest of the forest may need to hear the stories or read the words. But the One? Well she’ll know it in every quiver of her flesh and every stroke of her hair; in every deed and every quiet moment she let’s me in.
Then, in the moments when I’m challenged with this aloneness, I will know my place. She will remind me that my place is with her. Perhaps we are climbing a trail to see the world, or maybe we’re walking along a beach. Maybe we’re in Belize or Finland or on some other island laughing our heads off at some language we’ve just created. Maybe we’re just on a sofa watching old reruns of something that makes us laugh, wanting to be nowhere else.
Whatever it is, sometimes a lone wolf realizes the value of the pack. He just hopes he doesn’t realize it when it’s too late and his egress is swollen and impassable. My children will be off to build forests of their own and to learn their own lessons. I just want to be there when they call. When they howl, I will respond. That’s what old, gray wolves do.
I once promised that should I make it out of my wilderness, the rest of my life would be dedicated to putting lessons into practice and to doing what I know I must do. The One? Well she’ll stand beside me, not just knowing she’s safe but living like she is. She’ll open herself to me and know it’s worth the risk. Mostly, she’ll look over at the old gray wolf beside her and know what love looks like.
