Last week during lunch with a dear Christian friend of the past thirty years, as I was recounting yet another adventure from my past that she had never heard before, she remarked with a smile, ‘you tell all your stories with a total awareness and a sparkle in your eyes that you were on this adventure called life with a very present partner, as though God were your husband and always at your side’. 

My romantic nature has always found its true home in the presence of God. My ability to traverse the places I have landed, time after time, has been warmed by the company I keep and the knowledge that I am made for His purposes and those alone. And yes, I am a romantic.  I have observed in many other women over the years that the presence of an actual flesh-covered, air breathing male person is a necessity for them for even the possibility of a happy life and if they lose one, for any reason, they will very quickly acquire another to replace him. I seem made of either stronger or less lonely stuff, with perhaps higher requirements for my life companion.

Many of my memories it seems, are of times spent with someone who was sharing my delight or my anguish. I seem to have a running conversation with a partner that few notice is with me. I found this to be kind of funny at church last weekend where someone I do not know was talking to a friend of mine, and she kept sharing how one (implied older age woman) could meet men talking about bananas at Whole Foods. While I found this somewhat entertaining, I was in no way tempted to turn in my very present, if not obvious, partner for one I might find in a search for the perfect banana. It made me smile for the rest of the day, as I had really only seen a glimpse of how that woman felt she had to find someone in order to feel less lonely. Increasingly as I age I am feeling the presence of a soul mate rather than their absence, which I have to admit feeling over the first half of my life. There is a contentment that has taken me a long time to recognize, and I won’t be searching for anyone amongst the bananas.