The Name of the Play is Love
No disrespect to Thomas Stearns Eliot, but November is the cruelest month (I have no grudge against April). It was November, the first week, where I realized, not for the first time and surely not the last, that life is meant to be enjoyed, not just survived.
My life felt to me like a play, and I, the lead, beautiful but troubled, stumbled over my lines, forgetting my entrances, unaware of the plot and my place in it, acting articulate and savvy, well-rehearsed but still lost. Alone with the weight of carrying the performance, nobody tried harder to appear at ease and successful. Make the audience happy at your own expense. Nobody likes a sad sack. Just smile, and grin your way, grit your way, through it.
It catches up with you, the pretending. How to say the truth that you can’t remember? How to trust that anyone can even help. Why should they want to? Believing your own lies is a dangerous narrative. This is where the play turns dark and deadly: I don’t deserve to be happy. Nobody cares. The world will be better off without me. I am unlovable, unworthy, a waste of space. Never wanted and never will be. Worthless. Stupid. Inept.
It’s a bad play, no one is coming and I’m tired of the charade. It was November, I closed the curtain. Pulled it down around my face, show’s over. The darkness was a relief. The waking up, a nightmare. Yet here I am, happy, 40 years later. Here I am, writing my deep fulfillment. The play broadens its reach to include everyone who has ever struggled to make meaning, to find hope, to live purposefully, to realize joy and peace and beauty. The play unfolds, continues; always and forever. Its name is Love.
LBM 11/13/2021
