Love and Loss Go Hand In Hand

Love and Loss Go Hand In Hand

You can’t have one without the other.

I want to write about love and loss because this is what I know. I think it’s fair to say that most of us want love from a romantic partner, but very few of us understand the price we must pay for that love. When saying your wedding vows, are you prepared to face the possibility of a heart-wrenching divorce? Love and loss go hand-in-hand like two sides of the same coin, yet we only focus on the dreamy, gauzy illusion of happily ever after. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

This has been on my mind lately as I’m helping a friend go through her own mourning process after having to close the door on her marriage. She hasn’t said as much, but I think she feels comfortable sharing all the aches and pains with me because she saw me go through a break-up of my own a couple years ago and yet here I am; been there, done that. I don’t tell her that she, too, will be ok one day, things are too raw right now, but I’d like to think that simply being there for her sends her the message that she’ll make it through. But until then, shit sucks. There’s no other way to put it and I make a point not to sugar-coat it.

I wish someone would have told me. I wish somebody would have slapped that naïve and saccharine smile off my face, stared right into my eyes and told me, “you’re going to get hurt”. In the end, I guess I didn’t need that. Life taught me that all by itself so much that I’m now writing about it. So, if you’re reading this and you still think it’s all rainbows and butterflies snap out of it. I’m really doing you a favor.

I don’t regret having loved and lost. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s made me learn that life is that way. Yin and yang, black and white, there can be no spring without winter. This knowledge is helping me lean into the discomfort of an uncertain future. No real job, no real source of income… the days pass, one moment it’s morning and the next the sun is setting again and here I stay sometimes bored, sometimes napping, sometimes fervently reading, sometimes wasting time online, sometimes writing, sometimes resenting the passing of time, but there’s not much else I can do besides what I’m already doing.

The air is thin and I’m a little faint, but this is where I was told God was, where is s/he?

I’m living off of wispy threads of a vision that was once so clear it propelled me to let go of everything that was solid. And now I’m floating up so high that I’ve lost sight of the ground. It’s an unnatural place to be, this high up without any sense of solidity. The air is thin and I’m a little faint, but this is where I was told God was, where is s/he? Try as I might, it’s no use wanting to be down there when I’m up here. There’s nothing to grab onto, no anchor, no passing ship that might provide refuge so then I’ll just float here and learn to accept that to every ground there is a sky, as above so below. I’ll float up here with the dandelions and enjoy the view of the the pearlescent sky as I wait for the winds of fate to drop me off where I’m supposed to be when it’s supposed to happen.

Until then, I’ll continue learning to love and lose.