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I just got back from a wedding.
The best weddings are when it feels absolutely right. Stable, sane, calm, funny, heartbreakingly loving, with family and friends forming a community of blessing.
Tonight was one of those nights. All I could think was…no matter how much suffering there is in this world, something’s going right if two such as these meet and come together.
At some point, a lady toasted the families and said, “if you didn’t have such loving families growing up…I feel sorry for you.” I took it in stride, laughing along—but wow.
I came from what some might call a broken home. No dad, really. My mom, however, was loving and powerful and overworked and underpaid and burnt out and amazing.
But those of us who have worked too hard, for too long, and are older now, and go to weddings alone sometimes, who miss out on the climbing trips and the years of bonding and adventuring together with lifelong pals, those of us who might come from “broken” homes…some of us long for love and commitment and children and the whole catastrophe, too.
I rode home, on my bike, early, after saying my good byes. I road home in the dark, singing that old folk song about the moon, and that Rabbie Burns song about loneliness and love, and I felt so lonely.
So lonely I could cry. Many folks cried tonight, at the wedding, giving toasts. They cried the best kind of tears—happy tears, tears of love and appreciation.
And then I remembered: I was happy to be going home, too. To my dog, Redford. To my work—this. You. To my dedication to this world, to be of some real benefit, or die trying.
And maybe someday, this tired old boy will find a partner to laugh and cry with, and raise children with, too.
When you’re sad, remember Maitri.
Relephant bonus round:
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