More to life than love...

Today in my "Modern British, Irish, and Postcolonial Literature" class, we were discussing Virginia Woolf's "Modern Fiction" essay. We got on the topic of realism vs. modernism and how realism seems to actually falsify reality due to the fact that there is a specific plot with a climax and then a resolution or an ending. Life, in fact, is not like that - we have many ups and downs, and it is hard to look at one point and say, "THAT is when the bad situation started" or "This will be the beginning of the relationship" - life is more like stream of conscious writing in which many things happen and they sometimes connect and sometimes don't.

Now, I believe that, as a Christian, my life does have an overall plot and I have security in a "happy ending," but we talked about how people in general seem to prefer set plots perhaps because they are an escape from meaninglessness or the fact that life isn't always tied together with a neat bow, or we want that story ourselves.

It's interesting to me how "the world" portrays the plot of a woman's life. In the majority of movies about women, the plot of the woman's life circles around a relationship with a man. This dates way back - the only "endings" for novels about women used to be simply marriage or death. So our culture tells us, as women, that the most important thing, the thing to look forward to in life, is getting married. This idea has been so sewn into movies and books and magazines and music, and therefore sewn into girls' hearts (including my own).

I know that the purpose of my life is to serve God, and I desire to do that wholeheartedly. I know that He made relationships and that they are good - I definitely want one, and I want to serve God with that someone - but I hate how easy it becomes to focus on my desire for a relationship: success or happiness seems to stem from whether or not I am progressing in that area of my life. Sometimes, the pendulum swings to the other end of the situation, and it seems like happiness will come when I no longer want a relationship. I feel like both ends are skewed; it can't be the primary focus of my attention (that place belongs to Christ) but it can't be a nonexistent thought (because God created it for good and it is therefore possible to glorify Him with and in a relationship). The balance becomes not making it the main climax of my plot while still praying that it is in there somewhere.

So what would a plot look like where love is involved but not the only point? I have been inspired with so many ideas of where to go from here! I have actually thought about writing a mock fairy tale allegory portraying our relationship with Christ, so maybe I could incorporate these ideas into that. Or just a story in general. For my honors thesis, I might be able to do one of these stories (since I am a Creative Writing major). Or, if I wanted to go more English Literature with it, I could somehow analyze these ideas in popular works, except I would have to take it a lot further than that, since it would be a thesis.

I don't know. The idea just stuck in my mind all day and made me want to write about it.