Sources

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Where does Lady Crindeyes get her notions and sources, you may wonder.  She listens to relationship podcasts and has done so for the past three years, ever since rejecting marriage for a Ph.D.  And, being one in whom friends tend to confide, she has anecdotes from half her life from which to test her theories.

Esther Perel, Karin Anderson Abrell, Abraham Hicks, Katherine Woodward Thomas, and experts on personality theories such as the Enneagram have fed her appetite for understanding the human condition and its effects on love, life, and love lives.  Sources abound, but the truth is often still elusive.

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Casual Internet browsing yields interesting reads.  Here, dear reader, are two sources from last night: 

20 Subtle Signs Your Marriage Won't Last

and

10 Pillars of a Strong Relationship

Enjoy!

Lady Crindeyes

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In cleaning out my desk drawer, I found an invitation to a baby shower from earlier in the spring.  Over the years, I have spent plenty of money on gift registries for my friends who were either getting married or having babies.  None of those friends have ever given me a gift--whether it be for Christmas, my birthday, or graduation (and I have had several graduations over the years).  I have gotten plenty of gifts over the years, but they were all from my single friends--or from men who loved, but did not marry--me.

Dear reader, what say you to this strange system our society has devised of acquiring a wishlist for gifts? First, one must announce the life stage that is dawning--marriage or motherhood--and then one goes onto the store or the internet to assemble a list of items that are required for this stage of marriage or motherhood.  Depending on their own financial situation, each friend contributes anywhere from $40-$100 towards the wishlist, ensuring one gets everything one wants.

Have you ever wondered why a new bride is not capable of purchasing her own lingerie?  After all, she will not be sharing the wedding night with her friends, nor will they ever speak of it again, after the shower.  New brides receive expensive kitchenware--and yet, I have never been invited to brunch or any other meal, nor even visited the new home of those who have had a wedding registry for household items.  

Lady Crindeyes is left both perplexed and put off by this rather self-celebrating and self-centered behavior.

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Dear reader,

When this author was in seminary, she noted that some men had kind eyes, and some had critical ones.  Her girlfriends would assess new friendships using the rubric of kind eyes and critical eyes.  And yet, there are times when being critical is a form of ultimate kindness, because it prevents blindness.  and that, dear reader, is what Lady Crindeyes seeks to do in her blog posts.  May her words ring true.

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In the olden days, love was about money and status.  Women married for protection and security, and their fathers and brothers paid a dowry to their new husbands, to ensure that they would be treated well.  Men married for a place in society, and sometimes for the money that a wife brought, acquired from her father.  

This, dear reader, is why we have inherited the custom of taking on a man's last name after marriage.  We transferred from being our father's property to becoming our husband's.  Going from Miss to Mrs. was a change in status, and more often than not, money, rather than actual love, was involved in the exchange.

Why then, must we continue to harp and hurry our single women over the notion of marriage as the next important milestone?  In colleges that have a "ring by spring" culture, is not the bachelor's degree the modern day equivalent of the accomplishments of sketching and sketching, from the olden days?

Although I could have had a Mrs. Degree by the time I was finished with college--as the first suitor came along my second week of freshman year, when I was but 17--this author went on to collect two Master's Degrees instead.  Her grandfather, rather than offering congratulations, warned her not to go further.

"Women with Ph.Ds will have trouble marrying!"

Interestingly, she eventually pursued a Ph.D, because marriage proved not to be worth the trouble.

Summer Satire

Inspired by Lady Whistledown from the Netflix series Bridgerton, I offer some musings.

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Am I the only one who sometimes thinks that married women should be the last people to offer relationship advice to the dating?  In the case of unhelpful advice, it seems that either they are blinded by relationships in which they settled, and offer advice out of their own unfulfillment, or they are happily married to the first lucky bloke to come along and know nothing of heartbreak and the loves that are not meant to last for a lifetime.  

I was once told by a woman struggling in her marriage, with regards to my boyfriend at the time: "You won't do any better than him.  Seize him now while you can."  

Perhaps her advice to me had more to do with her needs than mine, but I did wonder whether her words were more of a compliment to him or an insult to me.

Dear reader, that was 10 years ago, and that boyfriend has been settled with someone else, of whom perhaps it can be said, "You won't do any better than him."

So it turns out that my friend was right, in her own way--but only about him, and not about me.

😷

Rounds.  We finished them in 40 minutes today.  This is what happens when Dr. B runs the show.  Discharge, transfer, moving on.  Let's not mess with the flow.  After all, Friday is tomorrow and let's not fuck up our mood by getting bummed out by sick patients who may not get better.

In actuality, Dr. B is extremely personable and compassionate, and I have never met a physician with better bedside manner.  During a Code Blue, right after the patient passed away, she knelt in front of the newly widowed spouse, who had collapsed onto a chair, offering condolences.

People are simultaneously complex and simple, and people in healthcare are no different.  Dr. B is my age, and I have heard her speak with other nursing staff about the guy interested in hanging out on her days off, and her recognition that she also does not need him.

She does her job efficiently and well, the ICU staff respect her leadership.  As a short and young-looking Asian/Indian-American woman, her competency becomes her authority.  

During rounds, we speak of patients as if they are merely cases.  And when we visit them in person, we treat them as such--fully human.

So, dear reader, those 40 minutes are well-spent--and they help us know that we're doing just fine.

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A co-worker, married, told me today, that the order of happiest persons ranks thus:

1. Unmarried women

2. Married men

3. Unmarried men

4. Married women

This explains why times with my previous chaplain cohort and my group of seminary friends were the happiest in my life.  We consisted of unmarried women and married men--equal, safe, and unattached.

The relational dynamics in those groups were such that we accomplished what is usually impossible, given the society we have.  We were true teammates, and we touched the wider community deeply.

So, as I use this list to reflect on how things turned out for my ex-boyfriend and for myself, it seems that we have each found as much happiness as humans possible.  Unhelpful advice notwithstanding.

I Never Want to Forget

 I never want to forget the feeling of uncertainty mixed with love.  It is thrilling, and it makes one sick to the stomach.  There have been times when you know this may not last, but this is yours to have and hold until it fades.  Each person who loves us gifts us with a life lesson worth remembering.  I believe I am a better friend and chaplain because of it, because I have been touched in some of life's deepest places.

There is also a wounding that occurs when those deep places connect with another human's heart.  And it does not have to occur within the context of romantic connections.  I have seen friends of mine--those who were undeservingly lucky to have married within 1, 2, or 3 tries of dating potential partners, and had relatively "smooth" love lives--get their hearts broken by their children.  Or by other family members.

My history includes deep disappointment in potential partners that my spirituality caused me to put a lot of faith, hope, and love in.  Those relationships affected my spirituality, and pushed me to seek out broader frontiers and more flexible frameworks.  I hope I am a better theologian because of the lessons that 17 1/2 years of dating--half of my life--have taught me.  Because what I believe has been altered by experience.

Esther Perel and other dating experts have noted that we often have up to 3 great loves in our lives.  Sometimes they occur with the same person, and because life alters us, the same relationship goes through different iterations.  Sometimes they occur with different people, because as life alters us, we change partners.  Either way, love comes in different phases and different forms, and love changes us.

I never want to forget what the journey was like, if one day I am ever settled.  I don't want to become one of those married women who doles out advice to someone who is single--whether happily or unhappily so--and I hope to always be on the side of the  relationally-disadvantaged and the unlucky-in-love.  So, because I never want to forget, I write this today, in case I ever need to remember.  

Great Expectations

 Growing up, I dreamed of becoming a wife and a mom.

In my young adult years, I envisioned myself changing the world alongside my husband.  In my twenties, I looked for men who had leadership qualities I could support, only to find that mine were just as strong.  In my thirties, I bloomed into my own leadership, and I decided that he would have to support me too.  Together, we would partner in ways that would make us a power couple, each pulling our weight.  As a seminary graduate and practical theologian, I collaborated with plenty of men, harnessing my lifelong tomboy energy to foster a certain kind of camaraderie and chemistry that was very collegial.  What I discovered that the men who reached out to me--whether it for mentorship or partnership--often had wives at home or women in their lives who did not necessarily share their vocational passions.  I was their intellectual match, their spiritual equal.  But men like that still wanted to "lead" at home.

Outside of the "church," there were more options, it seemed.  

There was a professor who expressed interest, a person of color and Ph.D who was a musician, therapist, and non-profit founder.  On paper, and even in person, these qualifications matched my own--I was working on my doctorate, I was a board-certified music therapist, I taught music lessons, and I had extensive work experience in non-profits.  The only catch was--Mr. Professor wanted to run for office someday, and I knew (especially after reading Michelle Obama's autobiography) that his career would always come first.  Were it not for that, it might have worked.  But I know that for politicians, their dreams are everything.  There is no stopping them.  Another black Ph.D had spent years in Asia, spoke and read Chinese fluently, and had a mother who was a doctor and hyphenated her last name.  The long distance got to us, though, and our lack of compatibility in our habits of "self-preservation."

I have had several loves in my life.  Not every love is meant to last for a lifetime.

In college, I had several conversations about marriage with men--some hypothetical, and some theoretical.  After college, I continued to meet people from all sorts of backgrounds.  Each relationship refined and reformed the dreams I had cooked up in my childhood and teen years.  Many different personality types, romantic styles, and cultural backgrounds enriched my own sense of self and self-understanding.  And yes, heartbreak hit every few years, leaving me in a "power down" position when it came to society's valuation of my worth.  No matter how much education and job experience I had, what people seemed to care about most was my marital status.  There was no escaping this--in my own family, at church, and at work.  My friends who married in their younger years shared about their struggles--but often doled out advice as well, as if being married somehow made them more knowledgeable about relationships than I was--when I actually had more experience in that realm.

Marriage is not an accomplishment, nor is it earned.  It chooses the lucky, and that's all there is to it.

So I decided to change my luck.  I manifested, and I primed my vibrational energy.  Like attracts like, and I focused on this law of attraction more than the futility and frustration of prayer and fasting.  And then he came to me--an old flame who had always stayed in touch, and the first "I love you" I'd ever said, during my senior year of college.  Circumstances had prevented us from exploring our feelings for each other when we were part of the same circle of friends, and 14 years later, he was moving away.  We expressed our love and gave each other as much as we could, knowing that the move needed to happen, and that life was full of unexpected surprises.  As we grew closer, we recognized that we were indeed each other's person.  We wanted to have our happy ending, and we wanted to start a family together.  After more than a decade of dating other people, making sacrifices for our families, and paying the price for progressive values, it took a matter of weeks to know that this was it.

When you know, you know, and no amount of community discernment can substitute for that.

When You Know, You Know

This post is written from the lens of one who understands people and relational dynamics through the lens of personality frameworks such as the Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram.  Several references made throughout will assume some understanding of core concepts of these frameworks.  Regardless of who the reader is, though, may it offer some food for thought.

For too much of my life, I have given my power away.  

Growing up in a Christian environment, the importance of discernment within community was always emphasized.  "In the multitude of counselors, there is safety," was the common word, and this was applied to life decisions around friendships, dating, career, and even school.  The ritual of presenting prayer requests during family time, small group gatherings, and even with friends, fostered a spirit of transparency that I still cherish and live out to this day.  But for an INFP--whose introverted intuition often knows the meaning of things before having the words to express them; whose perceiving way of intaking information leads to a strong tolerance for ambiguity and a willingness to wait for what is true to reveal itself; and whose belief in emotional process rather than logical outcome tends to make our Western-Enlightenment-colonized society feel uncomfortable--this also meant that many a decision I made in life took time to gain acceptance amongst my family and community.

At this point in life, I realize that those who instinctually understand me the most are not necessarily those who have known me the longest, or with whom I have had the most conversation.  Those who "get" me on a primal level share my core Myers-Briggs personality traits, as well as my "self-preservation" instinct (Enneagram).  Thus, I have felt more known by strangers, at times, than by those who know me well--including my own parents and brother.  My chaplain supervisor remarked during the winter, "Mutuality is hard to find, isn't it?"  Followed by a more facetious, "It sure is lonely at the top!"

What often exacerbates the feeling of being misunderstood is people's sincerest intentions.  I have often lamented that, in addition to the invisible, "I'm a safe person.  Tell me everything" written on my forehead, my youthful appearance and INFP personality have also seemed to elicit advice-giving and platitudes.  As a natural "Healer" type (per Myers-Briggs), and now as an experienced helping professional (between music therapy, social services, and chaplaincy), I know that the way people give advice often says more about their own needs and anxieties than about our situation and needs.  

Over the years, I learned how to make myself known, preemptively, by sharing with people that I'm an internal processor; that I never give (and prefer not to receive) advice unless it is asked for; and that I often will not consider someone to be a good friend until and unless we have known each other for 2 years.  I now understand that the "one-to-one" instinct is my most "repressed," according to my Enneagram subtypes "stack."  I was never one of those girls who needed a friend at her side in order to go to the bathroom, never designated another as my "best friend," and I genuinely wondered how one life partner would be able to be enough for me.  I often felt trapped by the energy of people who latched onto me in a very one-to-one fashion, and my self-preservation instinct would continue to wonder when I might leave to use the bathroom, drink some water, eat, or take a nap.  Those who wanted to get close to me sometimes commented that they felt that they needed me more than I needed them.

My secondary instinct is "social," which has served me well in my professional life, while still being balanced and regulated by my ability to self-preserve and maintain work-life balance.  My attention and sensitivity to the "bigger picture" of relational group dynamics has allowed me to take on leadership positions, even as an introvert, and to take multiple needs into account.  Whether it be on the floors as a chaplain, at parties during college, and sitting in class as a student, I never fully "zoomed in" to one person or one topic.  I would scan the scene for the multiple layers of what was going on.  In dating, I was never that person who became obsessed with their partner, and I always thought about who might be excluded by my participation in a heteronormative and monogamous relationship.  My uneasiness with so quickly "leaving" to "cleave" may have protected me from relationships that ultimately were not meant to be for the long haul, while still giving me the opportunity to learn whatever lessons they had to gift me.

Most of the life choices I am proudest of met with resistance from many--often those with hearts of ministry--who sought to help me "discern." There are too many to recount here, but it has been a pattern I have tracked for most of my adulthood.  I say his not out of arrogance, but out of a recognition of the few and far between individuals who actually "got it"--who helped me explore my feelings, my opinions, and my process, helping me eventually meet the Holy One with my desires...and who never brought their own "stuff" into the mix.  That is the kind of friend and helping professional I have always tried to be as well, and it is my passion to train others to do the same, as a chaplain educator down the road.

As a not-yet-educator-chaplain, I find the study of humans as "living human documents" to be fascinating, and I have gleaned so much wisdom from my patients.  "When you know, you know," is a phrase that happily married older couples use when young or single people ask, "What's your secret?"

I believe that this phrase applies not only to love, but also to life overall.  Do we trust ourselves and those we love to already have within them all the resources they need to access their best self?  Does our theology and psychological understanding allow for that?  

Mine does, after years of wandering in the wilderness of "Christian" "discernment"--particularly in Chraristmatic-and-Pentecostally-influenced Evengalical-type settings.  I now think very differently about "prayer" and "discernment," thanks to three years of studying under professors who are contemplative and holistic in their theology and intellectual bent.  And I have formed my own theology--in conversation with Process Thought and the Law of Attraction--that I am finding to be both practical and healing.  

In a way, I officially staked my claim on this theology yesterday, during my oral defense of Ph.D qualifying exams (based "officially" upon narrative pedagogies, critical auto ethnography, internal family systems, and virtue ethics, but "unofficially" also addresses themes of discernment and accessing our best Selves).  As I work out my dissertation research in this next phase of my degree, my aim as a practical theologian is to share these viewpoints with the lay community as well, because what is life-giving to me cannot be "hid under a bushel."  

Let us "quench not the Spirit" by disregarding our own intuitive wisdom, which comes from the presence of Christ within.  The more aligned we are to our own desires, gifts, and sense of security in Unconditional Love, the more we will begin to understand (as I am coming to see) the wisdom in "When you know, you know"--in all things, for all people.

A Time to Embrace, and the Shifting of Seasons

Easter has come and gone.  

My parents are finally vaccinated.

And I've started to hug friends again.

But the first embrace of 2021 came before the world began opening up, and before our hospital allowed visitors back onto the floors.  Except in the case of patients who were nearing end of life.

On March 14, I was called into the Critical Care unit where I had served for 6 months, on the evening of my last on-call shift of my second level of chaplaincy training.

A patient was actively dying, and her husband had come in to say goodbye, was at bedside, and could use some spiritual support.  She was Sicilian Catholic, and had already received Last Rites.

He was a thin man, perhaps approaching 70.  I have gotten used to the wide-eyed look of shock and sadness in family members' eyes, when they come to say goodbye.

I encouraged him to speak to his beloved, because hearing is the last sense to go, and because I believe that the human Spirit can receive all messages of love, no matter the physical state.

At one point, he stepped out of the room to tell me that, after seeing how much she was suffering, he was ready to make a decision to withdraw care.  This was a shift from his initial statement, when I arrived, that he needed more time.  Sometimes, seeing is believing.  Part of the grief is accepting that the patient will not make it, even if the actual letting go takes time.

The nurses put in the order to have a compassionate extubation.  I waited with the husband outside of the room as they did the work of taking the patient off her breathing tube.  He showed me pictures of her, looking healthy and happy.  He fielded texts from others--her sister in Big Bear, for example--giving them updates in real time.

After the extubation, we let the husband sit by the patient's bedside.  One never knows how quickly they will pass after an extubation.  Many of our nurses are Catholic, and they often feel helpless in times like this.  Often, they will want to do something to ease their own sense of helplessness, even if the family has not requested it.

The nurse initiated a group of us singing "Ave Maria" at the patient's bedside, with the husband's permission.  The music therapist part of me squirmed as it was done improperly, based on what I'd learned in my training.  But in sacred moments at the end of life, there is enough Grace for good intentions to transcend technique.

The husband left right after I offered a prayer of blessing.  I always end prayers for Catholics with the sign of the cross.  I escorted him out of the hospital, and at the lobby, he said, "I'm going to be a basket case when I get home" (to their two beloved cats--whose pictures I'd also seen) and suddenly wrapped me in a brief hug.

Ecclesiastes 3 reads:

There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3     a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6     a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7     a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8     a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

Her fight for life was coming to an end.  His process of grief had just begun.

After the husband walked out of the hospital, the security guard at the front lobby asked, "Did she die?"

"She's about to, I think," I said.

"Fuck!" he exhaled.

Yes, in professions like ours, sometimes, there is a time to curse.

I quickly got back into the elevator, and stepped back onto the Critical Care unit.  I rejoined the nurses in the patient's room, where they were still singing.  Within about 2 minutes, the monitor indicated that she had passed away.  There was a 0 by the line that measured her heart rate.  More embracing, and both nurses broke town in tears.

The pandemic had taken its toll on all of us.  There had been so much death, and so many goodbyes.  I did not shed tears--I tend not to, and have always been that way in such times--but I felt their sadness.  I remembered the image of the husband taking off his mask for a brief moment, when he kissed his wife's forehead one last time.

When I got home, I told my parents (who were visiting) that, even though I started my career as a helping professional in hospice music therapy, I had never actually seen someone pass away, been there at the moment of death.  Even in my first summer of chaplaincy, I had been with patients right after or before their last breath.

This was the Universe's gift to me, on the eve of my last on-call shift in a season of COVID chaplaincy.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15 Whatever is has already been,

    and what will be has been before;

    and God will call the past to account.[b]

16 And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,

    in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

17 I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment

    both the righteous and the wicked,

for there will be a time for every activity,

    a time to judge every deed.”

18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? 

Amen.