I Don’t Want Happilly Ever After
by Gail Matheson, PhD
AHA! moments happen when you least expect them, and often where you least expect them. (I know I am not the first person to have an epiphany while in the washroom, but it seems indelicate to include that in my tale…lol). Last night, I made a connection between a few random ideas that I suspect are profoundly meaningful for me. They are about The Story.
I have always loved to read, and I read Science Fiction and Fantasy the most. My favorite authors all probably tell some version of a romance story in what appears to be a larger story. Paul Atreides and Chani from Dune; Tolkien had some love stories in Lord of the Rings; Sharon Shinn’s books are all romance novels; Anne McCaffrey Dragon series have romantic matings through their dragons; and so on and so on. And these books were key parts of my adolescence… As I grew up in violence and other dysfunction, reading was the ultimate refuge. It was escapism, and it was encouraged. I appeared studious and mature because I loved books. I was an easy child to care for because I spent most of my time reading. And the books provided me with heroes who could be my father, my mother, me, my lover, my future. They gave me hope. They gave me a life so much better than the one I was in.
My romances were story book as well. I believed in love at first sight, and entered into long-term committed relationships in a matter of months. And I loved telling the stories of how we met, the adversities we had to overcome, and the happily ever after we were building. Yet these relationships failed, they ended, they ate away at me with loneliness. I remember saying to Bhikku that I was seeing the same themes play out with him that had been there in my first long-term relationship. Little did I realize that was the co-dependency pattern playing itself out. But the loneliness being covered by all the choices and commitments I had made was killing me…slowly, with golden handcuffs and words of love…and no emotional connection. But if I had written them up, they would have been beautiful stories. I have to fight myself daily in waiting for the moment that all my current relationship stuff turns around and that happily ever after that comes after the dark night of the soul in books.
