We have places to go. Important places. And we’ll know we’ve gotten to these important places when we get there and there are important things to do.
Who goes exploring with you, whether by road trip or in conversations which take you to places you’ve never been before?
One needs to feel adventuresome to expect surprises, whether in the mind or by physical transport. Asking questions of someone who appears to know about some topic with which I am not familiar is often a great adventure for me. For instance, I have concentrated primarily on the arts in my studies and activities; rather recently I have been in contact with scientists: a statistician and a chemist. Asking simple questions as the dialogue goes on has given me many new ideas and in some instances an understanding of a whole new aspect of life as seen from a different viewpoint than my previous one. Sometimes I can blend these aspects together.
My husband, with whom I’ve moved around this physically small state that changes so much as you travel around it. Marrying him, and being provided for by his career, has given me a life much broader, full of opportunities, and much more satisfying than the limited life framed by scarcity which my disabilities would likely have stuck me with if I was alone. Sometimes I don’t think I’m a good companion for him, or that we “settled” and don’t really match, but I am always grateful for what he has given me.
Then there is my best friend, N. We share: a voice part (tenor, we met in choir), a college major (music), shoe size, blood type, love of good food. We talk about being queer and still figuring out what to do about it (I’m bi, he’s gay). Now we’re taking on bipolar disorder together–I was diagnosed as a teenager, and he just found out when he had an episode last fall, so I’m sort of his sherpa on this trip. Sometimes we’re both depressed and all we can do is hang on to each other and keep each other alive. God forbid we fail.
Maggie, it sounds to me as though you have two anchors to depend on as well as two people to give back to who can provide support.
I do. I make wisecracks about “the men in my life”. Thank goodness they get along well. They’re probably never going to be best friends, but they care about each other. N, just by being his gay self, also has helped my husband become a better person, friendship beating homophobia. (He had a very conservative background and some of the bigotry rubbed off on him.) I am truly blessed with these two guys.