The Hermit

Last week I was feeling a bit lost. Among other things, the truth of my life as a hermit was weighing me down. Although I am married and have two children, I still live in my own little world. It’s not even so much the fact of physically being alone or not that matters. I’ve always been an outsider. The bulimia pushed me even further away from the norm, but that was just a symptom. Recovery didn’t make me the normal, cheerful all-American girl. I never was that.

Anyway, there I was, giving myself a half-hearted pep talk about how I simply have to accept my “otherness” as a fact of life. My life. It fit the mood, as the past few weeks have been low energy. I think I’d just written a blog, since I decided to click on the link “Goddess in a Teapot” and see what my friend Carolyn had to say.

Get a load of this. The entry that appeared was: “To the Hermit’s Cave” – No, I am NOT kidding! It was a wonderfully written piece and I was so happy to read it – and the comments – and feel like part of the hermit community. I added my own grateful comment, and went about my cheerful hermitty way.

An hour or two later, I wanted to read it again. (One dose of positivity isn’t always enough.) This time I clicked directly onto her blog. The hermit was gone!!! I didn’t panic, but went back to my blog and clicked on the link as I’d done before. She still wasn’t there! (Her blog is about spirituality and art in women’s lives, so this hermit is definitely female.) By then I was slightly irritated. What was going on? I kept getting the last entry she’d written.

So I searched officially for the hermit. She appeared promptly at my beckoning. Then I noticed the date. That piece had been written in November! I looked at the comments. They were also from November!

Of course, I told Carolyn about it. To this day, neither of us can explain how it happened. I can only speculate that the hermit goddess heard my call for help and came to me. Oh, now I remember what I was expounding before I fell into this little depression: Do what you can and let go! Put it out to the universe! It will give you all that you need!