Pardon me, Mr Darcy, May I have a moment of your time?

I didn't get around to reading Pride and Prejudice until a few years ago. I looked at the task as a scholarly one, trying to broaden my horizons by studying literary periods I wasn't very familiar with. But, as is typical with most endeavors, I learned much more about myself than I did about liteary studies.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it is about this 20-ish girl, Lizzy Bennett, in late 18th century England. Lizzy has three younger sisters who are respectively a hermit, a boy crazy fashionista, and an impetuous tween. Lizzy's older sister Jane, however is quiet, reserved and endlessly kind. The novel follows Jane and Lizzy's stories of falling in love. Jane falls for the jovial and equally kind Mr Bingley. Bingley too, cares for Jane, but because Jane has made no indication of her affections, Bingley's BFF, the apparently snobbish and self-righteous Mr Darcy, convinces Bingley to stop pursuing Jane. Lizzy, who is calm, logical, and wittingly sarcastic throughout the novel, discovers Darcy's role in the affair shortly before Darcy admits to being in love wtih Lizzy. She is outraged, and rightly so, and sends him packing (not that he was sleeping over or anything, they didn't do that kind of stuff in Edwardian England). I won't ruin the tale by giving away the ending, but I will tell you that against my better judgement, I love this book.

While I admire Lizzy for her wise actions and continuous analysis of social situations, as well as her laugh out loud wit, I sympathize much more with Darcy. On the outside, he appears to be, well a complete snob, but under that facade, he struggles with protecting his best friend's feelings, feining off advances from Bingley's annoying sister, and logically approaching his love life. Throughout the novel (and the films), Darcy's role is an understated one, yet the writing (and acting) convey his underlying tensions and conflicts.

I guess I partly admire the old school gentlemanly-nesss Darcy projects, but I also know that most of the time I project an unanimated facade while much of my life dances by in my head, me as its only witness. In other words, I totally jive with Darcy's interiority. At the very least, I feel comfort in sympathizing with him because knowing that he thinks more than he says makes me feel a little less alone.

Let me more openly self-reflective for a moment. There's a lot that happens in my head that I never express or convey, a lot that I never share. That way of life has been with me for as long as I can remember, but lately, I've been chalking that up to social anxiety, and therefore deeming it a bad thing, thinking I should share my feelings more. But the more I consider it, I'm ok with living in my head, they like me here.

Still, I want to share me, all of me, with someone. I guess in a trite sort of way I'm ready to share my life with someone, but even more than that, I feel like I have a hole in my life somewhere, and my recognition of that gap has created such a longing in my heart that I can't find solace anywhere. This is not to say that the gap is sprititual, actually, God and I are doing fine, and we talk about this gap a lot. That doesn't make it any less painful, though.

To explain things a little differently, I feel whole as a sister, daughter, friend, worker, student, Christian, and other areas of my life. I don't feel like a whole woman, though. That might be a little anti-feminist of me, but that's how it is. I'm not sure I believe in soul mates or even that there is a perfect person in the world for all of us. I do believe that God has a plan for each of us, that He has one for me, and I take comfort in that. But this gap thing is new to me, it's like I miss something, that I'm mourning some sort of loss, but I don't know what it is.

I don't want you to read this as some sort of "I need a man" malady, but take it seriously. I'm struggling here with it, this sourceless pain I can't seem to shake, no matter how much I try.