A Road Too Traveled

I’ve been struggling for several months with a strong desire (and an opportunity) to revisit the past. The desire involves someone I loved very much, and I’m quite sure that were I to see him again–it’s been nearly four years since that happened–I would love him very much again. But the situation isn’t right, and it’s highly unlikely it will ever become right.

When I spoke about my struggle with my pastor, he recommended Father James Martin’s The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life. I liked it (though not quite as much as his My Life With the Saints). Near the end, I found what I needed.

Martin recalls a scene from the movie The Matrix, when the protagonist is ready to abandon a new direction and just go home. Another character, aptly named Trinity, says to him:  “You’ve been down there, Neo. You already know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that’s not where you want to be.”

I know where that road I was on leads: to an amazing mental, physical, and emotional connection. To time with a soulmate–on his terms. To holidays alone. To birthdays alone. And no matter how wonderful that reconnection would be, the other parts of that road are too painful. It’s not where I want to be. It’s just taken me a while to figure that out.