A real lover is not the healthy choice you select with discipline. They ARE the temptation — the one you can’t resist, the one you fall for despite yourself. Not temptation away from the good, but temptation toward it. Eros is not opposed to holiness; it’s what gets consecrated. A lover should be both your strength and your weakness.
after my father died, I spent excessive amounts of time by myself. I could feel him so potently in the absence of other people that I started to have the distinct feeling that being alone was a way of being with him. I’d leave the house thinking “I’m going to spend the day with my dad today” and then drive alone to the coast. it’s been several years since his passing and this feeling is beginning to fade. being alone feels more like being with myself now. a sort of return to the self I inhabited before I lost him. but I find myself missing those long hours spent alone with my dad, and fearing a future that is increasingly more removed from his company.