Wow. We have readers! Thanks for joining us, friends. In lieu of comments, you can email us, and I hope you will not be shy. Reader Kelly wrote in to say:
I stayed away from your blog for a while, because it was hard to watch you fall comfortably in love, when I *too* was feeling like a pile of difficult, sad emotions. These posts today actually help heal the wounds, so I'm glad I found you again. And Hi Megan! I am looking forward to getting to "know" you.
It sounds strange, but I feel a lot of guilt and anxiety about being happy and in love. Those might not be the right words, but I'm not sure what the right ones are. It's more a fear of becoming smug. It's a fear of being the tool by which someone else might make herself feel bad -- by looking at me and wondering, what did she do to deserve that happiness? (Answer: nothing in particular.) And I think it's a fear of forgetting to feel lucky, forgetting what it was like to be yearning. I spent a lot of time yearning, and maybe it came to feel like a part of me. There are gifts that come with the pang. I think you notice other people more acutely, and you notice yourself. You feel a lot more, and maybe you even imagine a lot more. I am glad to have traded that raw tender ache in for a warm contentment, oh yes I am, and I wouldn't trade back, let's be clear. This is way, way better. But I don't want to forget.
Sarah Hepola is a writer I admire, and she recently wrote this piece about going to a wedding. I thought she did a good job capturing the way it can feel, when you are single, being invited to a celebration of love. That was really hard for me for a while, going to all those weddings alone. I was ashamed of my own envy, as Ms. Hepola writes it: "my mind marooning itself in selfish sadness". Ugh. So I know what you mean, Kelly, and it's something I worry about. Megan tells me this guilt is nonsense, but I'm not so sure. I'm happy now, and it strikes me that that writing about it might be both boring and perhaps a little tiny bit mean. Neither of which I really want to be.