all passion spent

 As they fade away, time passes, people are gone. Relationships simply fade to a dim glow and then die. No one knows why. It could be one thing said, one belief, one action… it makes us see something in another that we find distasteful, or we simply no longer feel an urge to chase and fight for the connection. I know that I have upset more than one person by expressing my desire to remain single and to not have children. In the same way, I find it tedious to see every single person getting engaged, then getting married, then having children. Here we go again, just by writing these words I am causing more relationships to die. I have travelled so much, I have listened to so much alternative music, I have read so many books, I have had so many unusual relationships, I have lived so far from family for most of my life… nothing about it has been conventional and, as a result, I struggle to relate conventional lifestyles. 

                  In my podcast this week, I was discussing how recent books that I have read have delved into the theme of desire and midlife awakening in marriage. Through works by Virginia Woolf, Eileen Change, Vita Sackville-West, and the book I discussed in detail on my YouTube video yesterday, All Fours by Miranda July. One hundred years of literature asking questions such as ‘what would I be and where would I be if I had not given my life to a marriage and children?’ It’s true that these questions are more frequently asked by artists who feel they may have not had the time or privacy to pursue their art, but they are also asked by all humans who wonder what path they’d have been on. And, just like the protagonist in Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent, people are generally quite happy in their marriage and, of course, they love their children… but, in many cases, they don’t really like their children, and, in many cases, people grow apart from their spouse. When Lady Slane finds herself single at the age of 88, rather than shrivel and mourn, she finds herself revelling in the freedom and finally living to the fullest whilst introspectively reflecting on how she gave up on all of her own desires and passions for her marriage and children. She lived a good life, but she was merely ‘a wife’, and she loved her children, but she did not necessarily like them all. 

                  And, in my case, I simply love the peace. I love the fact that it is Sunday and I spent the morning swimming, then reading, then watching soccer (which I am still doing) and now I lie here in silence, writing, contemplating life and its impermanence. Here I go… killing more relationships.