
Mia
My wife and me are huge fans of Doctor Who. I watched it as a kid in the Tom Baker era and my wife and me began watching together in 2005 when the show returned with Chris Eccleston and Billie Piper. The one theme that keeps coming around in the Doctor’s story is loneliness. Not only is the Doctor able to travel through time, he has lived for hundreds of years and can re-generate and live many lifetimes. The Doctor fills the centuries by bringing along friends he makes along his journeys. The friends are always referred to as his companions.
I probably won’t live for hundreds of years, and I almost certainly won’t ever be able to travel in time and space, but I have known the deep pain of loneliness. I travelled Europe as a young man in the Navy, and lamented that while I had seen great wonders and amazing places, my only companion in that experience was the old pair of Army boots on my feet. Moving out on my own, I remember laying in the dark silence of my bedroom, so alone that my jaw would tremble until it was sore from trembling. I would curl up in a corner and shut my eyes, unable to sleep and unable to rise, not even sure if I cried, sobbed, or just lay their in quiet depression. Even after placing my life in God’s hands, I walked with him alone. I remember the long nights of longing for him to provide me a partner, a helper, someone to share the life that Christ restored to me and who would share their life and work with me. At times, I cried out for the creator to take his breath of life out of me if he was just going to leave me by myself when my heart so longed for a companion.
I was like the Doctor travelling in his TARDIS, with a huge world hidden within the comparatively small vessel of my person. While it was only 30 years, I experienced it as 300, a journey of centuries in the short span of my life. Then, one day, I didn’t meet the companion I longed for.
I knew Mia for almost six years. We were friends, but not what you’d call close. We enjoyed similar interests and we would talk about the things we enjoyed. She had a little more money than I did and that made a difference when you were working where we did. I had a car and I could invite her to dinner and she would usually pitch in with paying for the meal and maybe a few bucks for gas. We did together, the things we enjoyed alone and didn’t think anything more about it because we weren’t looking for eachother. Then, it was an epiphany, a revelation, an unexpected opening of my eyes – we had built the foundation of something that we realized could last a lifetime. A little over 6 months later we were married.
There isn’t any loneliness now. I have my companion. We’ve been together nearly 6-1/2 years though I’ve aged about 10 while she has managed to only age about 3 or 4. I was actually a little younger than her at first and now I am somehow much older. Today is her birthday, so I posted a favorite photo of her here.