The Real Marriage

Eventually we all have to say I DO to ourselves

Mitch Ditkoff
2 min readFeb 24

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Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Whether or not you are married now, have been married, or will be married – regardless of the quality of your marriage – you will eventually need to marry yourself. And by that, I mean you will need to experience the soul mate within — the aspect of your true self from which all love emanates.

Here is a poem I wrote a few months after my 29-year marriage came to an end…

THE REAL MARRIAGE

Today, my own best man, alone in my room,
I am going to marry myself,
love who I am until death do me part,
embracing what exists at the core of my being, knowing, as I do, that my soul mate lives inside me, closer than my own breath,

muse of my muse and has always been with me, even when I was not, whole until itself,
radiant, free,
snuggling in its wrinkled pajamas with infinity.

This marriage of myself,
this loving the love that loves
is not a rejection of the world,
nor is it a denial of the passionate glory of loving another.

It is, quite simply,
the recognition that who and what I am
were made for each other a long time ago,
best friends, lovers,
the pauses in this poem,
not so much holding hands,
but being held in the massive arms
of the nameless One who animates us all.

Excerpted from “Unspoken Word”: pub date, 3/21/23

The poem above is excerpted from my forthcoming book of poetry. Pub. date: 3/21/23

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Mitch Ditkoff

Co-Founder of Idea Champions, Face The Music & Sage Catalysts. Author of Storytelling for the Revolution, Storytelling at Work, Unspoken Word and Free the Genie