Shalom

Thought I'd take a break from the list tonight. I don't think there are any more highly charged blog posts in the list, so you should be safe from here on out (I'm looking at you, Currys.) But I felt like I had a little something to talk about tonight.

On Sunday Tim spoke about how God wants us to have/find "Shalom" in our lives. It was a good sermon. And it hit on a lot of stuff I've been thinking/dealing with lately. Shalom means peace. (Well Tim said it means a good deal more than simply peace, but peace is sorta the overarching word.) I actually re-read Ender's Game last week some time, and the word Shalom is a device the author uses there, too. And peace is something that I've been thinking about a lot.

I think that in a lot of aspects of my life I have an abundance of shalom. In my work situation for grad school, in the loss of Nathan, in my friendships. I have it... but I don't have it in my relationship status.

I've noticed something interesting.

I can tell who is single and who isn't by watching them for a few minutes in a public setting.

How?

Because single people look around.

I actually noticed this in myself a few months ago. I was at a restaurant with Katie, Jonny, and a few other people waiting for a table. When one particularly attractive young man left the restaurant I leaned over to Katie and said something to the effect of, "Gosh, did you see that guy? He was so cute!"

And Katie got a puzzled look and said, "Guy? I wasn't paying attention."

Because when you are in a committed relationship you don't pay attention. I was the same exact way. And I think that's a very good and healthy thing, and I think most people are this way. But it means I can tell who's single. And I guess that's good because it means that people are open to possibilities... but at the same time I really don't like it.

Well, in general, I don't like being single. I kinda suck at it. I think and I plan and I imagine ways out of it, but there isn't really much that I can do, because it has to be the right guy at the right time, and I don't have control of guys or timing.

And that's really frustrating.

Of late that all I want to watch are romantic comedies I've never seen before. I want to read books that are (in effect) romantic comedies. I want to watch television shows that are romantic comedies. But they all leave me completely unsatisfied in the end... because there is an end.  The credits roll, the last page turns, the 45 minutes are up and I'm still sitting here by myself, and what I really want is to be *living* the romantic comedy.

I have this great and strong desire for romance... and I'm not talking about candles and sappy love songs and roses... but the *real* romance. The grand gesture of Snow Biz. The silly conversations and inside jokes. The hug as you are cooking. The cheek or forehead kiss. Just being in the same room as another person working on entirely separate things. The romance of the everyday. I love that stuff, and it's not going away. It's built into who I am.

But I have no avenue for it. I have no method, and while I am not unhappy... I also don't have shalom for very long.

Because I'm always looking around and explaining why this guy is not the right one, and wondering why this one doesn't even know I exist, and dealing with the fact that this one has completely no interest in me.

I can't ever seem to hit the balance right and it's exhausting. And I think at the core of it is an additional layer of frustration that I don't understand why I have to do this all over again anyway....

And fear that I'm gonna have to be single another 21 years before it'll all get sorted out again.

So yeah... shalom, she is fleeting.