@+e Forum The Unintentional Monk

The Unintentional Monk The beginning was written in flickers of fire. January 23, 1997 wasn’t just a date on a calendar; it was a spark struck against stone. We didn’t fall in love so much as combust. Everything about us was heat—reckless, generous, unashamed. We lived in a rhythm that felt ancient, like something inherited from a time when passion was a form of prayer. Twice a day wasn’t a routine; it was our dialect. It was how we said I see you, I choose you, I want you still. We were wealthy then—not in money, though we scraped enough together to feel young and invincible—but in the currency of desire. We were rich in touch, in closeness, in the kind of intimacy that makes the world outside feel like a rumor. I thought that was the foundation we were building on. I thought that was the promise. But fires, if not tended by both hands, eventually settle into embers. It didn’t happen all at once. It never does. The first shift was small enough to ignore. A skipped night here, a tired excuse there. Twice a day softened into once. Once softened into “maybe tomorrow.” Tomorrow softened into “not tonight.” And then, without ceremony, the rhythm that had defined us began to falter. Twice a day became twice a month. And the language changed. Where intimacy had once been a gift freely given, it became something I was told I had to earn. Not through affection or connection, but through tasks—chores, favors, performances of worthiness. I became an employee in my own marriage, clocking in for the chance at closeness. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the first vow of my unintentional monastic life: the vow of effort without reward. I became a student of proving myself. A scholar of romantic gestures. A craftsman of hope. I learned how to plan the perfect date, how to phrase the perfect compliment, how to anticipate needs before they were spoken. I learned how to fold my own longing into something polite and patient. I learned how to smile through disappointment. I learned to accept my rejection with a jest coupled with laughter, while my heart crumbled and cried in the depths of my soul. Humor became my shield, a way to soften the blow, to pretend the sting was smaller than it was. I became fluent in the art of the playful shrug, the lighthearted quip, the “no worries” smile that hid the quiet fracture beneath it. It was easier for both of us that way—easier for her not to feel guilty, easier for me not to feel pathetic. But even armor wears thin. And when effort didn’t work, I escalated. There’s a particular kind of hope that only the desperate know—the hope that believes atmosphere can fix what affection no longer fuels. I started searching for places that promised romance the way a church promises salvation. Places with themes, with curated lighting, with tubs shaped like hearts and ceilings painted like fantasies. Places designed for couples who still touched each other. I wasn’t booking rooms. I was booking chances. That’s when the hotels began. Not the cheap ones—not the “we just need a room” kind. I chose the ones with themes, with mood lighting, with heart‑shaped tubs and velvet headboards and ceilings painted like night skies. I chose rooms that promised romance in their brochures, rooms that whispered this is where passion returns. I booked them with the optimism of a man who believes he can fix anything with enough planning. The first one had a faux‑Tuscan theme—warm gold walls, a balcony that overlooked a parking lot but pretended it was a vineyard, and a bed draped in fabric that tried very hard to be sensual. I brought wine. I brought chocolates. I brought the version of myself that still believed in miracles. I watched her. She fell asleep watching her phone as I laid in the bed by her side non-existent. I lay awake listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the quiet collapse of another attempt. The second hotel had a jacuzzi tub big enough for two. I filled it. I lit candles. I played soft music. She dipped a toe in, said the water was too hot, and spent the rest of the night scrolling on her phone while I sat in the tub alone, surrounded by bubbles and the faint scent of lavender disappointment. The third hotel—my personal favorite—had a star projector on the ceiling. I imagined us lying there, wrapped in each other, whispering the kind of things people only say in the dark. Instead, she turned the projector off because it “hurt her eyes,” and we slept back‑to‑back, separated by a gulf wider than the fake constellations above us. Each attempt was a pilgrimage. Each failure was a sermon. Each night was a reminder that desire cannot be manufactured by effort alone. But I kept trying. Because that’s what you do when you love someone. You keep showing up, even when the door stays closed. Years passed. Attempts dwindled. Excuses multiplied. Hope thinned. And somewhere along the way—quietly, without announcement—the last spark went out. Now, twenty-nine years later, the silence has become permanent. Not angry. Not dramatic. Just… settled. Like dust on a windowsill. Like snow on a field no one walks through anymore. The transition is complete. I didn’t choose the monastery, but I live within its rules. My vows were not spoken, but they were lived. The passion of our humble beginnings has been replaced by a celibacy I never sought—a quiet, solitary existence inside the walls of a marriage that once felt like a cathedral of fire. My robes aren’t made of wool. They’re made of resignation. Of patience stretched thin. Of the quiet ache of a hand that reaches out and finds nothing waiting. I am a monk in a house that was once a home, learning to live in the stillness of a fire that went out long ago.

My fire still burns, my passion hasn’t died, on my side of the bed I am but an expeditioner on a journey, building a fire next to a glacier, a wall of ice that cannot be melted.   My fire still burns. That’s the part no one sees. People assume that when a marriage goes quiet, both sides cool at the same pace, like two stones left out in winter. But that isn’t how it happened. My passion didn’t die; it simply lost its place to land. On my side of the bed, the heat never left. I am still the man who once woke up reaching for her, who once believed that desire was a shared language we would speak for the rest of our lives. But desire becomes a strange thing when it has nowhere to go. It becomes a kind of wilderness—untamed, unreturned, unspent. It becomes a fire built next to a glacier. That’s what these years have felt like: tending a flame beside a wall of ice that cannot be melted. Not because I didn’t try. Not because I didn’t bring kindling, or warmth, or patience. But because some things freeze slowly, silently, and permanently, and by the time you notice the frost, it’s already too thick to break through. I used to think I could warm her. I used to think love was enough heat for two. I used to think effort could thaw anything. But glaciers don’t melt from touch. They melt from within. And hers never did. So I became an expeditioner—mapping a landscape that never changed, learning the contours of cold, memorizing the silence. I learned how to live beside the ice without expecting it to shift. I learned how to build my fire small enough that it wouldn’t scorch me with hope, but steady enough that it wouldn’t go out. There is a loneliness in that kind of warmth. A quiet ache in being the only one still burning. And yet, I stay. Not because I am weak. Not because I am afraid. But because love, once given fully, does not retreat easily. It lingers. It endures. It waits long after waiting makes sense. That is the strange vow of the unintentional monk: to keep a flame alive in a place where no one comes to sit beside it.   Longing and desire has turned into, emptiness and despair. My life isn’t a life worth living, it’s a dread just to move on. I am tired and have grown weary.

I have no desire to carry forward. I loath the day, and fear the night.

I welcome death, and I pray to close my eyes into the eternal night. I would not be missed, nor would I be remembered, for I am just a lowly servant of love that would not be received.