Love and Loss What I learned
Once I fell in love. I shifted into a different space and time and a part of me was severed from world. I no longer felt gravity. I saw beauty in ordinary things I had not noticed before. Creativity smoldered and burst into an unstoppable flame. The fire burned into the core of my soul, and I was able to accomplish and also face things that I never thought possible. I made things, I wrote stories, poetry and love letters. It didn’t matter if they were ever read, or ever seen. The joy was in the making. I had never felt so alive.
For me it felt so unique, as if no one in the world could possibly have felt as deeply, but love strikes many and the boa constrictor around my heart has felt the beating drum of countless lovers.
This love story was set for a tragedy of the heart from the beginning. My intuition spoke clearly, ‘this time will not last’. We are both sailors, and unless bound for the same place we would mostly be finding ourselves on opposite sides of the planet.
I loved him more than the need to escape pain.
So I decided that while we had each other I would lean in. I wanted to know if I could I learn to love the world, my life, my own breath the way that I loved this man.
How could I hang onto this driving force of creativity and passion? How could I hold onto the feeling of bursting at the seams with joy, lusty fear, excitement and the feeling of endlessly falling without fear.
The first step was to learn to love without the need for that same love in return, because in the end the joy lives in the giving. Often times I find that people measure the love that they are giving against the love that they are receiving. When there is an inequality the authenticity of our love is questioned. However, the feeling in our chest of giving the love is good enough. To give love can be even more intoxicating than being loved. It is all in the way we choose to look at it.
Whenever I meet very successful, artistic and interesting people I always ask the same question. How do you stay inspired? I am always hoping for the answer that unlocks the universe, but so far I am usually given just a thoughtful gaze.
Maybe this would be the path and the answer to my question.
The second step was to pay attention when I was overcome with the feelings that I wanted to hang onto, like joy, contentment, desire, and confidence. What was it that made me feel this way?
Throughout our days together, I studied him as if my work would be to paint his face without ever laying eyes on him again. I took note of the feelings I had, and the woman that I became when he stepped into the room.
I also started to study the morning with the same vigor, the way the sun rose and cast a gold hue on the trees. I looked at the pavement and began to notice paw prints made in once wet cement. I ran my fingers over every fern and took in the strange beauty of peeling paint. I began to study the world around me as if I would never see it again. I did this with the joy of a child and I began to feel the same feelings.
On some days I felt longing and the fear of loss. On these days I examined how much the fear of what was going to happen took away from the joy that I could have had living that moment. Why was I not indulging in the time I did have? This taught me a valuable lesson. The anxiety over that which you fear is often worse than the thing that you are fearing itself.
On the day that we left each other for the last time I took that moment to wrap my arms around him and and soak in the detail. We cried, we laughed we hugged and wiped the tears from each others cheeks. I was overwhelmed with sadness and also with gratitude.
I did my best to let go of sadness and lean into feeling grateful to have been gifted with the time to learn how to feel so deeply. To have the knowing that you are capable of loving and to then let go with grace is a gift.
Ive learned to speak to myself like the man that was falling so deeply in love with spoke. I thought of the way he looked at me and that became my inner narrative. The way we tell the story of who we are and they way we deserve to be loved is a big pat of leading an inspired life.
Who has loved you or looked up to you in your life. A lover, a friend or Mother, Father, your child? Can you learn to see yourself the way that that they see you? Can you find truth in their admiration?
The pain that I felt in the end was more fuel for my creative soul than the falling in love itself. To feel is to truly be alive and that is at the core of staying inspired. We need to seek the things that make us feel on fire. That is where inspiration lives.
Today when I see a face or hear a voice that reminds me of him, my heart skips a beat and the constrictor squeezes my heart. I look around and I see the water, the trees and I remember that the goal was not to hang on to a person, it was to hold fast to the feeling of being alive, experiencing deeply and seeing beauty in things I often do not take the time to notice.
Fortunately, I lived fully and deeply in our moments together and I can go back there and sit a while whenever I need to be reminded on how to find my inspiration.
