The tragedies of my life have been of a personal and largely self created nature. I had a crisis of identity, but also had the resources, (artistically) with which to try to work it out.
Grateful to be free tonight from the depression that had been gnawing at me like a rat over the years, a depression that had chewed such perforations in my soul that I would not at one time been able to enjoy even such a lovely evening as this.
I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for him to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been, (due to lack of another word) the ‘victim’ of my own optimism.
And many times have been a victim of my own pessimism. Not trying, waiting, and knowing what comes next. Knowing silence breaks the flow.
People universally tend to think that happiness is stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it and sometimes travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.
I used to disappear into the person I love. I am their permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything; my time, devotion, ass and money. Everything! I will carry for you all your pain, assume for you all your debts, protect you from your insecurities, project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and give you the sun and rain. All this and more until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way to recover is to become infatuated with something else. Exhausted by the cumulative consequences of a (young) lifetime of hasty choices and chaotic passions, my body and spirit depleted. I felt like the soil on some desperate sharecroppers’ farm, sorely overworked and needing a fallow season. So I quit.
But you see letting go is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well- that would be the end of the universe. Sit quietly and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid flight. The trees do not wither and die and the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on. Why are we so sure that our micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is so essential? Why don’t we just let it be?
How many more types of people can one keep trying to love and continue to fail? Think of it this way – if you’d had 10 serious traffic accidents in a row, wouldn’t they eventually take your license away? Wouldn’t you kind of want them to?
People tend to think that a soul mate is your perfect fit and that that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet because they tear down the walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever… too painful. Soul mates come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you and then they leave.
They touch a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching. But WAIT until you can see how much more deeply you can love, you have the capability of loving the whole world.
But because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair. One usually trusts only what one can experience with one’s senses.
This life that you live “man” is the only life you know. In this moment, for every moment, and everything that you make is on you. Loneliness is a curse.
So learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it.
WELCOME TO THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE!
Never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.
And I’ll never forget once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, I recognized myself a friend.
But how can I accept that bliss when it comes with this dark underside-bone crushing isolation, corrosive insecurity, insidious resentment and, of course, the complete dismantling of self that inevitably occurs when ‘he’ ceases to giveth and commences to taketh away.
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