Fit Though Misfit

For all of you who won­der how my heart can still yearn for my for­mer wife (as well as the girl I thought to make my wife), I can final­ly explain it for you (and for myself).

I real­ized… I don’t fit in… ‑any­where-. I am odd­ly and eccen­tri­cal­ly shaped. Every sin­gle ven­ture out­side my door (and even those inside) are plagued with the pain and ten­sion of nev­er fit­ting in even despite much effort.

That’s ok. I have friends who extend grace and love and make a place I can fit in despite my odd shape.

So why do I not close off my heart to (and the hurt from) those few I have tru­ly loved? It’s sim­ple now to explain. With them, I fit. They loved me (I believed) and none of my irreg­u­lar­i­ties and rough areas stuck out in incon­ve­nient places… and in that con­text, I could relax.

Nev­er, ever, ever am I able to have that com­fort and relax­ation out of that con­text. Every day is an ardu­ous intim­i­dat­ing task to do the same thing I did yes­ter­day. Hat­ed it then. Hate it today.

I have had two, all too brief, peri­ods in my life when that was­n’t true.

I think there­in lies even some of my desire to have a fam­i­ly… Fam­i­lies fit, because they grow around one anoth­er. Love is the flex­i­bil­i­ty that not only molds one shape to the next, but also changes some of the dif­fi­cult things about each one so that they fit nat­u­ral­ly in that con­text and then out­side of that context.

Of course, I’ve also learned that I appar­ent­ly relaxed too much… the les­son there would be that I can nev­er tru­ly relax, but that’s a les­son, despite learned, that I will ‑not- embrace, because to do so would be to reject life and all hope of what­ev­er joy God may grant in this lifetime.