17: That Kind of Love

 [Housekeeping note: no post here next week. Check back again on Wednesday, November 11th.]

By this point of my life, 18 years old, I knew. I knew the one thing I started dreading in 7th grade and began to slightly accept by 9th grade was not ever going away. I knew I wasn't into girls.

The thing is (don't laugh), by choosing to live a life of chastity, I honestly thought about it more in terms of giving up the females I wasn't into rather than the males I was into. A life with no heterosexual love? Pfft. I can do that. I know this seems illogical, but doing anything with another guy was an impossibility anyway, as far as I was concerned. This was the early 90s, and things were extremely different (and much more difficult) back then.

As a thoroughly naive teenager who up until that point assumed his homosexual leanings would either disappear on their own or at least agree to stay bottled up inside him forever and ever, the stubborn yearnings of my libido genuinely took me by surprise.

Even so, I was a monk in a conservative Roman Catholic monastery, which is just about as deep into any closet as you can possibly imagine crawling (deeper than the walk-in closet of a millionaire). I was so closeted, in fact, I didn't even realize how much my gayness was actually beginning to show.

For starters, I had already crushed hard on a close friend in high school, a feat I not only accomplished inside the monastery later on, but one which I have managed to repeat several times as an adult now too. It's terrible, and it's needless grief I have caused in other people which I can never undo. I'm a better man on the other side of these occasions, but I have still lost some of the closest, best friends of my life because of it, all due to my propensity to push and guilt and otherwise try way too hard to get someone to like me more than they do.

To put it another way, I have lived and understood the darkest parts of an unhealthy Enneagram 2. [See "Unhealthy Levels" at this link, which describes my personality type in full.]

You have to become conscious of your self
without being self-conscious.
Fr. Philip Eichner, S. M.

The sad irony is that so many times throughout my four years as Brother Sean, I shared advice, quotes, and counseling with friends and family members, including that quote above from one of my religious superiors, all while neglecting my own needs, yearnings, and desires--and most of all, my faults. I was clueless, really, as to how I came across, and didn't yet realize how much more I had to learn.

All of this brings me to the title of this blog entry, which appears in the letter below.

February 17, 1994, excerpt of a letter I wrote to the girlfriend of one of my high school friends, a guy I regrettably crushed on too much back in the day:

I must say that I have been thinking about you a lot lately. I am so grateful to God for the gift of your friendship. It makes me very happy whenever [he] mentions your name and tells me of a discussion you and he had that reminded him so much of discussions that [he] and I have had. He told me that you and I are very much the same as far as our 'views' of him. [He] really is a great guy and will always be a dear and valued friend to me. I hope that you never stop thanking God for giving you [his] friendship and love... And that is what makes a real couple. I will never experience that kind of love, but believe me, it is a very joyous experience to watch two people that I have grown to love and care for very much fall in love with one another. I pray for you and [him] every day, and I wish you only the best in years to come.

Can you read between the lines along with me there, reader? Do you see what I was really saying to her? This was the girlfriend of my biggest high school crush. She was a straight girl I got to know and loved as a dear friend, but she'd also won the heart of the straight friend I had such a crush on. I'd honestly given up all hopes of love, yet I was basically telling her how lucky she was, while also celebrating that he had compared me even slightly to her in some ways.

At the end of that letter to her on February 17th, 1994, I wrote, "I would hope that you could somehow find some time to write to me soon. I know that school and work are keeping you busy, so I do not expect a letter back. However, I would love one when you get a chance. Yes, I am complaining. I have not gotten a letter from anyone in at least two months. So, PLEASE WRITE BACK."

It's clear to me as I read these old letters how very lonely I must have been feeling at this point.

I had some hope though just ahead of me. I wrote this to her on a Thursday, and that Sunday the 20th of February in 1994, I was going to be seeing two of my closest friends while I visited my parents' house. Apparently, however, that didn't happen as planned.

February 22, 1994, excerpts from a letter to my friend Mark:

I'm sorry that I missed you this past Sunday. I guess something came up. Brendan was not around either. ...Oh well. He must have forgotten that I was coming to visit. ...I really wish that you would write. Hi. Remember me? Sean, your friend? Listen, I know that you don't like to write, but come on. I haven't spoken to you in months! Please, just drop me a line. Yes, I do miss you. Do you miss me? Don't answer that. Okay, Mark, I have written another letter, not knowing if I'll ever get a response. Either way, take care, and please remember me in your prayers.

February 23, 1994, excerpts from a letter to my friend Brendan:

I missed you this past Sunday. I was looking forward to seeing you, but I ASS-UME that you forgot. Melanie called me to tell me that you were in the city, so I didn't bother to call your house. Yes, I missed you, but I guess it will be another month before I see you again. ...Again, I'm sorry about Sunday. What happened? Please write back when you can.

When you give yourself and your life over to God through a vocation to the church, you surrender so much more than just your worldly belongings and pursuits. You give yourself entirely to the life and the people in that life who have all been called by God to do the same. It's not easy.

Neither, I recall, is being 18 years old even when you're not living in a monastery, and there's no doubt that despite my guilting them at the time, my friends had very good reasons to miss visiting with me. It's not all about you, Sean!

As an Aspirant, the title I went by before beginning my Novitiate year that summer, I was in the thick of some major growing pains at this stage of my journey. I'd only been there for eight months, but already I'd been away from my family for the holidays for the first time, and was beginning to see the many miles--literal and emotional--which now separated me from all those I'd left behind.

I had chosen to forego that kind of love for another human being, but in a community of men who didn't hug or show warmth beyond smiles and hardy slaps on the back, my desire for emotional connections with anyone still willing to keep in touch from high school meant that much more to me.

I had chosen this path just as much as God had chosen me, yet the loneliness of the life was starting to hit me harder than it ever had before. And sad to say, it was about to get even worse.


Coming in Two Weeks: It's Like He's Dead