starting over, googling for answers

I have great hopes for this blog. I had these hopes at the beginning, then I lost them, and now I have them back. It's a good time for me to get this going. I'm trying to heal from a painful experience in my life as a single woman, parent, person. To follow up on the previous post, due to the severe turbulence in his own life, the "he" who had that dream seems to be bailing from the plane I've apparently been piloting. Or, more accurately, is suggesting that, for my own good (he really does care about me), I not count on him as a passenger anymore. I'm trying to keep my hands on the controls. I'm trying to weather the bumps and accept circumstances beyond my control. I'm trying to learn.

There's a subway ad (pictured above, courtesy of NYC the Blog) that proclaims "Because Some Answers Aren't Found On Google," promoting Marble Collegiate Church, a wonderful place that I often pass--just half a block from one of my favorite places in the city, Church of the Transfiguration (aka "The Little Church Around the Corner." Sometimes when I'm feeling down and have a little extra time on my way home from work, I head eastward on 29th Street until I hit Fifth Avenue. Marble Collegiate is on the northwest corner; mostly I just look at it then head east towards Madison--the Little Church is mid-block on the north side of the street.

Anyway, one time I actually walked up the west side of Fifth and paused in front of Marble Collegiate. There's a statue I'd never really noticed before--maybe it was the bright floodlights and very prominent position--I realized that night that the figure is Norman Vincent Peale, a man who has special significance to me. When I was a kid my grandparents were really into New Age spirituality, and my grandma was a minister in the Unity Church. In addition to the work of the "sleeping prophet" Edgar Cayce and others, they also had some of Peale's books around the house. My mother, who is definitely not a New Ager, told me that as a teen she had read The Power of Positive Thinking and took his advice to heart. She made an effort always to smile as she walked the halls of her high school, and sure enough, many of the notes from classmates in her yearbook mention her beautiful smile. I remember devouring an anthology of inspirational Christmas stories published by Peale's magazine Guideposts (sort of a prototype for the "Chicken Soup" series), long after the holidays were over. Later, when I attended Ohio Wesleyan University, I learned that Peale, who was still living though in his 90s at the time, was an alumnus. I hadn't realized before that Marble was Peale's church--apparently, he was pastor there for half a century. Standing there in front of his statue, I felt what my friend Kim calls "a synchronous moment."

I admit I've tried to google for answers many, many times. When I was trying to deal with the impact of having a child with Down syndrome, when I found out my marriage was ending, when the ins and outs of relationships baffle me, or when something ends and I'm reeling and searching for peace. I've been doing a lot of that the past few weeks as this connection that has sustained me in many ways for six months is breaking down. If I'm lucky the search will lead me to a blog that is interesting or informative, or maybe a book that is actually helpful. Most times, though, the process only yields a list of ehow or wiki pages, desperate pleas on discussion boards (followed by responses of decidedly uneven quality and dubious value), something from Associated Content or some other article mill. But today, in the midst of a particularly downward swing, I used the keywords "breakup loss of mirror relationships" and found this article from a blog called "Think Simple Now." The author, Tina Su, who calls herself the CHO ("Chief Happiness Officer") of the blog, whose goal is to "empower people to find inner clarity and personal happiness through simple, uplifting, motivational, and applicable articles."

I found the article to be an effective, affecting compilation of personal experience and wisdom from other literature. Her advice is not too far from Peale's philosophy of embracing the good, believing in a higher power or force that orders the universe, and forgiving others and ourselves. It works for me in particular because the man in question is a truly good person--caring, generous, thoughtful, self-aware--and I find it hard to just stop feeling attached to him and deny the powerful connection we've felt. Tina's radical-seeming suggestion to just allow yourself to love the lost partner while accepting that you are no longer together, counter-intuitive as it seems, fits my situation really well. I know it will still be awhile before I can actually embrace what the relationship has taught me and move on, perhaps to love again. But I'm much more hopeful that it will happen. And then I can Google about something else for a change!