We all want what we want, but what happens when we don’t get what we’ve been hoping and praying for by a certain time? For example, by the age of forty?
Desert of Solitude is for dreamers and strivers. People who may have achieved nothing, something or a great deal, but that “one thing” continues to elude them. What is it that you want from life, in life or through your life? What do you think you’re missing? What do you believe will complete your existence?
It doesn’t matter. Whatever “it” is, you are enough for your life as you are now.
To whole and sufficient.
Desert of Solitude isn’t a pity party or a survival story. It’s a story of a woman who was tired of being tired. Tired of waiting for life to get better. Tired of praying for a partner in life or an immaculate conception. Tired of being alone in the world. After years of being weighed down by deferred dreams, hopes, expectations and plans, she decided to get up and move forward. As she was in that moment… and each subsequent moment. This is the story of a forty year-old woman shaking herself loose of all her youthful ideals and understandings, who made an honest evaluation of her life and proactively began to transform it.
Dedicated to women
Desert of Solitude is a sisterhood helpline to women who have reached the end of their rope with family, friend, and societal expectations for who they should be, how they should live, and what they should have. Women who are impacted by the demands of womanhood, feminism, faith practice, virtue, marriage, singleness, motherhood and career. This is for the woman who is simply tired of not being able to be herself. Who has lost contact with her inner being. Who seeks refreshment, revitalization, new direction, new life. You are not alone. This message is a gift to those whose lives have become deserts; those who do not want to remain dry and fruitless. Life comes after death. Release yourself. Embrace your rebirth into your truth: a wonder-filled, over-flowing existence as a conduit of love and light.
I think comedians are innately sad people. Or rather people who started their comedic journey as an effort to hide or heal themselves. Usually, you can hear in the way they express their humor which they are attempting to do. Hiders usually lash out – they have a sharp, harsh humor, most likely at someone else’s expense. Healers usually attempt first to be understood – they will share their experiences in as universal a way as possible.
I didn’t know what to think about Robin Williams when his death was reported. I was certainly disconcerted hearing that he had taken his own life, but I wasn’t surprised. I’ve learned through my own trials that the loudest laughs chortled through the deepest sorrow. It wasn’t until Joan Rivers died that I understood better the nuance I couldn’t quite put my finger on with Robin. He was a healer. He was a gifted comedian who created a space to bring forth genuine laughter. A true sadness of his death is that, in that unalterable moment, he allowed his gloom to overcome his gift.
The Friday following Joan Rivers’ death I watched two hours of televised tributes to her. I didn’t laugh once.
Initially, I watched out of curiosity. After a while, I was repelled by disgust. By the end of the second hour, I was quite sad for the life she had lived.
Bitter. Self-hater. Shallow. Unfulfilled. These words describe her own commentary about her life and career.
Iconic. Legendary. Trailblazer. These are the words her friends, admirers and reporters used in their commentary regarding her. They wanted to be like her. Many interviewed for the tribute specials, credited Joan with their success; they didn’t think they would be where they were had she not gone before. Yet in the same specials, Joan herself rejected their praise disdainfully. However, she desperately wanted everyone’s adulation.
In her own words, Joan wanted the end of her life to look like the excesses of Hollywood culture.
from “I Hate Everyone…Starting with Me” by Joan Rivers, 2012
Perhaps that’s the saddest thing to me and it speaks volumes about what she valued most in her life. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to make headlines. She wanted to be photographed and sang over by other celebrities. I understand that she was a comedian and irreverence was her Schlick, but regardless of what she did and what she believed, words have creative power. She painted a portrait of a woman who was never satisfied with who she was, what she had achieved or what she had. She lived in fear of going broke, being rejected, and not being wanted or loved. Truthfully, if I allowed fear to ride me, those would be the top incapacitators. You may have similar fears (of varying degrees). This is not uncommon. However, not all of us tear other people down in order to hide our own insecurities.
“I Hate Everyone…Starting with Me” by Joan Rivers, 2012
Joan Rivers made a career out of belittling people and calling her words “humor”. The point of this post is not to deride the departed, but to warn the living.
Joan’s demons are not reserved for fame-seekers, her demons are common to all of mankind. (1 Peter 4:12). The demons, aka the enemy, insinuate themselves in our thoughts. Thoughts transform into desires and desires become plans. Suddenly we’re on a path living a life we didn’t really want for ourselves, but the attention and worldly benefits are misconstrued as blessings. Before long we are giving no care or concern to our spiritual health or needs. Everything becomes about the here and now and the outer image – how others see us and our trappings of success and popularity.
That is not a well-lived life. It is an empty life. A very unfortunate way to choose to live.
Joan Rivers knew that and she told us with every joke she uttered. Her audience may have forgotten or chose to rename what she was selling but she was clear: hate was her product. She was a hider who hid in plain sight. She dressed her hate up in glamour and the masses ate of it.
Who follows someone who hates themselves and everybody else? People who also hate themselves, those who don’t see any beauty or truth in who they are.
There is another way – a fulfilling way to live and die. A way of love and self-acceptance. Reject fear. Embrace who you are. Nurture the good in you and minister to the needs-improvement-and-betterment areas. Be an example of self-care and love and eventually you will inhabit a community full of similarly loving people.
Be blessed as you go and check the company you keep while you’re going.
Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.
But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly. For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.
When you are brave enough to see me and accept me at my most basic, uninspired, unremarkable self – indeed, embrace my ordinariness – then, and only then, will you develop eyes to see the extraordinary splendor of my heart.
Kahlil Gibran has been on my mind lately, so I’ve been walking around with his book, The Prophet, for the last couple of days. I see and feel more in his writing everytime I read something. Even my favorite pieces speak to me differently with each reading. I would love to post his whole book, but I don’t want to turn you off with too much of a good thing.
And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered, saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows — then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky — then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.”
And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
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It’s an amazing thing to be a lover of all your elements. I am who I am . Can’t be who you want me to be. Nor do I want to be. Many people move through life posing as people-pleasers, then wonder why they are so dissatisfied. Seek God first and the rest will follow. What followed for me was a depth of self-evaluation, a wealth of self-knowledge and complete acceptance of who I am. I still fight with some of my elements (I’m the lady on the park bench talking to herself… you know the one you rush your kids past! [smile]), but I love and embrace them all.
I believe by accepting and loving all my elements, I am able to love you a whole lot better!
