NeverGoingBack

Mario, Luigi, and God

Fate.
Karma.
The stars.
God's will.
Chaos theory.

To whichever theory or explanation you subscribe, one thing remains constant: none of us know what will come next. The minute we think we have it all figured out, everything changes – and in no small way.

Personally, I can't find better proof for the existence of God. The spontaneity, the irony, and often the bitter drama that accompanies these life changes cannot derive from the randomness of chaos nor the haphazard alignment of the planets and stars. Karma goes right out the window – I can't speak for everyone, but I couldn't possibly earn this much grief in so few years. And fate has its supporters, but I say to them: fate has a boss – fate is God herself.

Herself? Yes. Her. She.

I've come across a couple references to a female deity over the years and, while some of them come in joke form, it really wouldn't surprise me the least if God turns out to be very much like a woman – in deity form, of course. (The only true form of a woman, as some of my female friends will certainly insist.) When life changes its mind, suddenly and with little or no explanation, it only strengthens my belief. Love turns sour, tumbles down in spirals, and ends in a dramatic twist of irony – just like your average paperback romance novel, and we all know the market for those. And while the former stereotypes might suggest disillusionment with the female gender, I say that some of my closest, dearest friends are women – women I hold in the highest regard – and I mean no slight by what I say. To the contrary, stubbornness and angry tempers plague the world with poverty, hatred, and war, but the smallest action executed with kindness and compassion raises the spirits of the weary. It's hardly a question to which of the two each gender gravitates.

While the preceding paragraph may help explain my later point of view, this article really has little to do with gender stereotypes. Besides, by the way things seem to work, merely writing the above might be enough to cause God to take a manly form just to play with my head and make a point. It matters not. How we live our lives matters. As we journey, day by day, through this existence we try to learn the rules – we try to understand it all, and some deign to believe that they succeed. But He, She – God – makes it exceedingly difficult.

In the time of yesterdays long ago, I thought I could plan everything. Why not? I'm an intelligent being; perhaps above average, too... maybe. I understood the sciences, its facts and its teachings, well enough. My feet remained firmly planted; my head was anywhere but in the clouds. I knew how to take advantage of The System. I was privileged. I was on track, the path lay clearly before me, and it seemed that nothing could go wrong. So I made some plans – decisions rooted in simple logic. Some worked out, others did not, and some – as it turns out – were nearly fatal.

My rescue involved one of the most unexpected, and unlikely, series of events I could possibly imagine. God works in mysterious ways, they say. In one swift instant I began a completely new chapter of my life, but it took years to fully realize the extent of that change. Within the next few months I came to realize that there was a higher power at work. (I always bought into the teachings of the Church, but nothing opens one's eyes more than personal evidence of the Truth.) Past events appeared in an entirely different light. The path before me no longer seemed rigid but fluid instead. And something happened that I had not planned: I fell in love. It seemed as if a miracle had opened my eyes to the entire world, but little did I know how blind I remained.

As an aside, I should mention that it is no small injustice to attempt a summary of the next six years, but the events of those years warrant a dozen articles unto themselves (if my personal journal entries are any indication) and I have neither the time nor the space to detail them here. So summarize I must.

While ignorant of my blindness, I did learn one lesson almost immediately: one cannot control love. Control implies that there are applicable rules, that one can set parameters, or that one (at a minimum) could generate or shun feelings of genuine love at will. Impossible. Love stealthily attacks us. Love grows beyond known bounds. Love breaks barriers, erases distance, and halts time. I slowly gave in to love; I let it grow. I fell in love with a friend – a friend that would become even more dear to my heart over the years. She was beautiful, intelligent, and kind. We had, at least from my point of view, a chemistry and an intimacy rivaled by no other in our lives at the time. I could only describe it as a match made in Heaven – an example of Divine intervention, if you will. Only later did I learn that love lingers long after you wish its pain would subside.

As much as we both used our intelligence and logic to guide our daily decisions, she still applied the same cold logic to her heart; indeed she ruled it with an iron fist. As I said, I always felt there was strong chemistry, but I could never tell for certain since she never would open her heart to me; she would say one thing, but her eyes seemed to betray something more – hidden within her heart. She based her decisions on "practicality" and priorities. I was neither practical nor a high enough priority. Now perhaps I was entirely delusional, but one time in particular I thought I managed to break through to her heart. Alas, about 72 hours later, six years of friendship were over in the blink of an eye.

She managed to reclaim her clenched hold on her heart on behalf of practicality. Her explanations as I begged for the reason sounded more like excuses and half-truths – nothing to explain the drastic change, the inconsistencies in her words and behaviors, and certainly no access to the true feelings she buried deep inside. To this day I would pay dearly to know her thoughts – to know whether I was merely intoxicated with love or whether she really did suffocate her own feelings. As much as I believe you cannot control true love, she either proves that it is possible or that it wasn't love on her part. Regardless, I shall always be in debt to her for the role she unknowingly played in my salvation.

Then my world fell apart. "Unraveled" hardly describes the way my thread of reality seemed to disintegrate before my very eyes. Contradictions ruined all the "truths" I thought I had learned in those few years. Things that seemed so right, things that seemed out of my control, things I had brought about in the naive belief that they were what life had in store for me – all of them gone. I was betrayed by my own assumptions, slain by my arrogance, and humbled by the grief that took their place.

Then slowly, very slowly, I moved forward in life. Even before I could recover from my sense of loss, I found myself in new situations that mirrored my previous ones. It appeared that life, or God, wanted to show me the flip side – to enhance my perspective. I must admit I found it difficult to resist making the same decisions and excuses my friend had used against me; indeed my resistance was not always successful. The light shed by these new experiences allowed me to have a greater respect for what my friend must have gone through. While I still find myself unsatisfied by her attempts to explain herself, I can at least share some compassion and understanding and, ultimately, forgive her.

I have since come to the realization that I'm simply a passenger in this life. Sure, I still have decisions to make that affect my situation, but I liken them more to the way a passenger in a long car trip suggests where the driver might pull over for a rest or a bite to eat. I'm by no means taking a passive approach to life, but I've finally learned that the instant I assume to know the driver's intentions, She decides to take the scenic route just to show who's really in ultimate control.

But the best analogy might be found in the adventures of Mario and Luigi – yes, I'm referencing a video game. Just follow me on this. You spend your time working for coins, eating your healthy mushrooms, doing your civic duty to quash a few Koopas here and there, and yet you still manage to find time to have fun crawling through pipes. You seem to have everything figured out; things are getting easier. And it's just then that you reach the end of the level. Your next situation is brand new and unique; some similarities exist so you can build on prior experiences, but you have to go back to learning your new environment all over again. Of course, you know that the same thing will happen when you reach the end of this level, too, but you persist on your quest to find that Princess.

Well, my friend, they say God has a sense of humor. And if it turns out that a video game like Super Mario Bros. models life better than we might think at first, there's more proof that I offer you. Consider me Mario. By reading this, you've watched me play a few levels; you've got a few ideas of the pitfalls before you. But you, Luigi, my friend, still have to play the level on your own before you can move on. I wish you happiness, luck, and perhaps a fireflower in your future endeavors.

March 5, 2005