Giving Up on Love

Last week we asked the boys at Contact what they were giving up for Lent. Having been raised Catholic, and subject to 13 years of Catholic school myself, I was familiar with the tradition of giving up a luxury or activity for a period of 40 days each winter or spring. Though officially I haven’t considered myself a ‘practicing’ Catholic since graduating high school, I still find the idea of voluntarily going without to be an interesting practice of faith. Though my own claim to be giving up American Sign Language, while signing, “I love you,” was only intended to be ironic, I was struck by how even this empty gesture indicates my current state of mind.

The purpose of Lenten sacrifices is intended to help the faithful connect with the immense sacrifice of Christ. Growing up, my sacrifices tended to be of the sugary variety (ice cream, chocolate, etc.) or mild promises as a petulant teen to be nicer to my family. But giving up on a form of communication or the act of saying, “I love you,” seems to be even more incongruous with the goal of the season than my superficial promises of yore. Nevertheless, giving up on the need to romantically connect, only to find it falling on deaf ears, is something I desperately need to attempt.

Lent is a solemn period that connects the celebrations of Mardi Gras and Easter. The church and its followers revel in the lead up to this time with the parades and parties now synonymous with New Orleans, Rio, and Venice, as well as the rest of the world. Easter is more subdued but is heralded as the most important Christian holiday, since it is the day that Christ fulfills his promise of returning. As a teen it was hard for me to understand why the most important day of the church’s calendar signified the discovery of an empty cave. If only each failed attempt at finding Osama bin Laden had met with as much exuberance, perhaps the last several years of this wasteful war would have been more enjoyable, and think of the number of Cadbury eggs, Peeps, and jelly beans we could have gotten!

Giving up on the idea that all our attempts at finding love are going to meet with success, or the confirmation of a Messiah, seems to be one of the smartest things we can do right now. Giving up the expectations of what each date, Facebook message, or night out may hold for us, may allow us to just relax a little and force us to sacrifice our impatience, until we find that the tomb of our heart is no longer mourning the loss of the one(s) we loved, and is reunited with the happiness and fulfillment we’d been promised would one day return, no matter what shape or size it may arrive as.

It’s hard to give up anything that we hold dear, but some of the things we hold most precious can only be appreciated if we go for a period without. Lent may be about sacrificing to bring us closer to an ideal, a savior, but it could also just be that the very act of giving up and putting our wants and desires into the hands of a higher power will allow us a measure of calm, peace, and serenity. When we stop perusing DList profiles on our lunch break, or wondering why he’s not texting, calling, or messaging back, then the only thing left to do is just to continue living your life and worrying about not what is lacking, but enjoying what is richly afforded.

I’d like to pretend this is easy for me, to pretend like I’m OK with seeing what happens and how things develop, but if you know me, you know that’s it not. I want to know that the time I’m investing with someone is building towards something more meaningful and not just frittered away toward growing ambivalence and eventual resentment. Since college I’ve wondered what it was like to be Jewish, among other things, a religion based on the belief that the Messiah is yet to come. Maybe it’s just the reflection of my own belief that someone great has yet to enter my life, or at least hasn’t shown himself to be my own savior just yet. It has certainly taken more than 40 days, and a lot more than 40 guys, but I’d like to say I remain optimistic. I may have given up on love for now, but then again, spring is just around the corner, and it’s reasonable to assume that anything can bloom.

Appeared originally on homo-neurotic.com on 3/4/09