I used to think of life as a hill I had to climb. The only goal was to reach the top. And the top was where the ultimate reward awaited.
So every day, to me, was another step toward the goal. The only thing was I never really thought about what that goal, that reward, might be. I'd never really sat still long enough to ask myself one vital question: What is the real point to life?
I was as misguided, in a way, as many mount climbers: I was climbing my hill "because it was there," without pondering what the point was in that.
If you've ever climbed hill, however, you often can't really tell you've reached the top until you hit that point where you realize you are already going down the other side. And I didn't realize I'd reached the summit of my hill until it was too late and I already was heading back down the other side.
Because it turns out the pinnacle of my hill, and, thus, my life, was to find the one I was born to love. Isn't that really the point to life? To find someone to love and then to love them with all of your heart? Doesn't everything else pale in comparison?
So while climbing my hill I find her and I do love her with all of my heart. And without knowing it, I reach the summit of my personal hill. Only I don't get to stay there. I don't get to plant a flag, take a photo and record for posterity this achievement. Because before I even realize it, I am not just heading down the other side, I am falling down it, getting bruised and battered along the way. Because she, without intending to, has pushed me down it by choosing not to stay, not to opt for love, but instead picks security and safety over the unknown realm of love.
After rolling back to the very bottom, to the depths of the deepest valley, I now must decide if I want to rescale this hill, climb my personal mountain again. Do I have the desire, the energy? Do I even have the time to reach the summit again? Or will I try, and fail, to reach love again? For that matter, is love even at the peak of my mountain anymore? Or would this be just another fruitless and vain effort to grab for something that is so far beyond my feeble reach, a mountain too high for me to ever scale?
I don't have the answer yet. I'm still in the valley, assessing my aches and bruises and looking up at a cloud-wrapped summit, wondering if this climb is worth it. Wondering if love is still waiting for me there.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
THE RIGHT MEASUREMENT
When I was younger, life was all about proving myself worthy.
Worthy as a son.
Worthy as a man.
Worthy as an employee.
Worthy as a person.
I pinned this "worth" on intangible things: a pat on the back, a hug, an award, a welcoming smile, a faster mile. Things that did not last and could not be captured.
Because they did not last, I was constantly striving for another, and another, and another, even though each one proved less fulfilling than the previous.
Still, I could not turn to more concrete achievements, such as money and items of outward wealth because they held no appeal to me. I knew, deep down, that they do not measure a person's merit or worth.
In time, with a wisdom that eluded me before, I realized only one thing could truly measure a person's worth, or at least was the lone measure of mine: love. Who I loved, how I loved them and whether and/or how they loved me in return.
And in that area I found myself unable to measure up. I found myself wanting: wanting to be better, wanting to love better, wanting to love more unconditionally, wanting to love more completely.
I applied myself to this shortcoming as I had others: I worked hard at it. Hard work, however, yielded no results. In fact, it seemed the harder I tried, the worse I was at this thing called love. Then, one day, a special, wonderful, amazing woman walked into my life. And suddenly love was not work, took no effort, was so easy I had to ask myself if this was even really happening. But no amount of pinching could change the fact that she was real and the love I felt for her was real.
Then, as quickly and easily as she and love had arrived, they both were gone. And I was left with the harsh reality that nothing I could muster -- not effort, not hard work, not determination -- could bring her or love back. They are gone and I have to live in their wake.
Knowing I loved and still love her the best I could.
Knowing I will love her for the rest of my life.
Knowing I will never love like that again.
Knowing I have loved at least this once in my life.
That is the only measurement that matters.
Worthy as a son.
Worthy as a man.
Worthy as an employee.
Worthy as a person.
I pinned this "worth" on intangible things: a pat on the back, a hug, an award, a welcoming smile, a faster mile. Things that did not last and could not be captured.
Because they did not last, I was constantly striving for another, and another, and another, even though each one proved less fulfilling than the previous.
Still, I could not turn to more concrete achievements, such as money and items of outward wealth because they held no appeal to me. I knew, deep down, that they do not measure a person's merit or worth.
In time, with a wisdom that eluded me before, I realized only one thing could truly measure a person's worth, or at least was the lone measure of mine: love. Who I loved, how I loved them and whether and/or how they loved me in return.
And in that area I found myself unable to measure up. I found myself wanting: wanting to be better, wanting to love better, wanting to love more unconditionally, wanting to love more completely.
I applied myself to this shortcoming as I had others: I worked hard at it. Hard work, however, yielded no results. In fact, it seemed the harder I tried, the worse I was at this thing called love. Then, one day, a special, wonderful, amazing woman walked into my life. And suddenly love was not work, took no effort, was so easy I had to ask myself if this was even really happening. But no amount of pinching could change the fact that she was real and the love I felt for her was real.
Then, as quickly and easily as she and love had arrived, they both were gone. And I was left with the harsh reality that nothing I could muster -- not effort, not hard work, not determination -- could bring her or love back. They are gone and I have to live in their wake.
Knowing I loved and still love her the best I could.
Knowing I will love her for the rest of my life.
Knowing I will never love like that again.
Knowing I have loved at least this once in my life.
That is the only measurement that matters.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
NO HAPPY NEW YEAR
As scientists tell us, time is relative.
But where they speak of it being relative to the speed of light -- the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time passes -- most of us know time is relative to the state of mind. When we are happy and truly enjoying time with someone, time simply flies past, like a speeding bullet. And when we are away from that someone, and enduring the drudgery of daily life alone, time moves achingly slowly, like molasses poured on a cold day.
As more and more time passes, too, each second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year grows increasingly insignificant, especially when spent away from the one we love. So that when a new year dawns, it comes more as a yawn than as a joyful opportunity. Instead of the new year bringing with it the chance for something great to come into life, for some changes, some improvements, some love, some romance, it only means another 365 days of more of the same, as time's passing slowly and surely grinds down all hope, all optimism, all dreams and leaves behind only the dust and grime of daily life.
That life must be endured, lived, completed, but without the dreams, hopes and sunny outlook that pushed away the obvious swirling gloom and despair that tried to overwhelm those younger days. Instead, without any chance at love, without any hope for the beloved, the darkness and grey skies blot out the sun and leave us, as it probably should, mired in the winter of our lives, with little to look forward to.
Especially the dawn of yet another new year.
But where they speak of it being relative to the speed of light -- the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time passes -- most of us know time is relative to the state of mind. When we are happy and truly enjoying time with someone, time simply flies past, like a speeding bullet. And when we are away from that someone, and enduring the drudgery of daily life alone, time moves achingly slowly, like molasses poured on a cold day.
As more and more time passes, too, each second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year grows increasingly insignificant, especially when spent away from the one we love. So that when a new year dawns, it comes more as a yawn than as a joyful opportunity. Instead of the new year bringing with it the chance for something great to come into life, for some changes, some improvements, some love, some romance, it only means another 365 days of more of the same, as time's passing slowly and surely grinds down all hope, all optimism, all dreams and leaves behind only the dust and grime of daily life.
That life must be endured, lived, completed, but without the dreams, hopes and sunny outlook that pushed away the obvious swirling gloom and despair that tried to overwhelm those younger days. Instead, without any chance at love, without any hope for the beloved, the darkness and grey skies blot out the sun and leave us, as it probably should, mired in the winter of our lives, with little to look forward to.
Especially the dawn of yet another new year.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
THRUST BACKWARD
Let's say you have a high-definition television. The picture you see is vibrant, crystal-clear and almost alive.
Then, one day, it breaks down. So you pull out your old, regular-definition set. And suddenly the view is less colorful, dull and flat.
It has lost its life, its reality, its fullness.
It's far less than what you once knew.
That is the reality of life after love.
One day, with the one you love, your eyes have been opened to an entirely new world and a suddenly fresh and vibrant new life. It as if you and your heart have been awakened from a decades-long sleep in which there were dreams kind of like this, and yet nothing close to this amazing.
Everything is more real. Even the mere act of taking a breath and blinking take on new meaning in this revised and overhauled reality. Every heartbeat is a drumbeat to a new way of living, changing your walk through this existence from a slogging march to a break-dancing, free-form expression of pure joy. Your feet barely touch the ground, if, indeed, they can find terra firma at all.
And then, without warning or hint, you are unceremonially thrust back into the world you thought you'd left behind for life. It's as if you were blind for decades, been allowed to suddenly see and experience real sight, and then gone blind again. You almost wish you'd never been allowed to see at all, because then you would never know what you had been missing. Or what you now will miss for the remainder of your life. Because you never will see like that, march like that, live like that ever again.
Not unless the one you love will return.
And that seems very unlikely, if not entirely impossible.
It's as if the bank has repossessed your Hi-Def TV and handed you a 10-inch black-and-white with rabbit ears and told you that's all you get to watch from now on. It would remarkable if you'd never seen any TV before, but how can you go back now that you seen what can be?
How can anything ahead in life ever compare to the love you know and have known?
Indeed, how?
Then, one day, it breaks down. So you pull out your old, regular-definition set. And suddenly the view is less colorful, dull and flat.
It has lost its life, its reality, its fullness.
It's far less than what you once knew.
That is the reality of life after love.
One day, with the one you love, your eyes have been opened to an entirely new world and a suddenly fresh and vibrant new life. It as if you and your heart have been awakened from a decades-long sleep in which there were dreams kind of like this, and yet nothing close to this amazing.
Everything is more real. Even the mere act of taking a breath and blinking take on new meaning in this revised and overhauled reality. Every heartbeat is a drumbeat to a new way of living, changing your walk through this existence from a slogging march to a break-dancing, free-form expression of pure joy. Your feet barely touch the ground, if, indeed, they can find terra firma at all.
And then, without warning or hint, you are unceremonially thrust back into the world you thought you'd left behind for life. It's as if you were blind for decades, been allowed to suddenly see and experience real sight, and then gone blind again. You almost wish you'd never been allowed to see at all, because then you would never know what you had been missing. Or what you now will miss for the remainder of your life. Because you never will see like that, march like that, live like that ever again.
Not unless the one you love will return.
And that seems very unlikely, if not entirely impossible.
It's as if the bank has repossessed your Hi-Def TV and handed you a 10-inch black-and-white with rabbit ears and told you that's all you get to watch from now on. It would remarkable if you'd never seen any TV before, but how can you go back now that you seen what can be?
How can anything ahead in life ever compare to the love you know and have known?
Indeed, how?
Friday, December 28, 2012
WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT LOVE?
What is the point of life, if not love?
We spend our formative years (hopefully) being taught how it feels to be loved unconditionally. In the process, we (hopefully) also learn that being loved feels very good, because we will want to know that feeling even more once we grow up.
Along the way (hopefully) we are watching and learning from parents, grandparents, siblings and others how to love. We see the sacrifices made willingly. We see the small loving gestures, the tender touches, the loving looks, the caresses, the closeness, the sharing of all things -- good and bad, pretty and ugly -- so that we can do this one day for someone we love.
Then, when the time comes and both heart and mind, soul and body, are ready, we begin to search the world for the one we are meant, created and built to love. There will be false starts, blind alleys and dead ends along the way and the path may twist and turn, rise and fall and test our resolve, determination and endurance, but to not continue, to not push on is to consider a lifetime without love.
And that would be a hollow, lifeless experience. Far too sad to even consider.
So we keep searching in the faces, the eyes, the hearts of all we meet. Is it her? Can he be the one? Always pushing past each disappointment and picking up the search where we left it. Because our hearts demand that we keep looking until, at last, it finds the heart that completes us.
Not once in this journey do we ever consider that maybe we will find this one, this better half, this soulmate and they will, for reasons we cannot comprehend, choose a life without love. For it is one thing to think we may never find our "one." It is quite another to think that person will reject us completely.
And then it happens. We are stunned, shaken and lost. Because the cause seemed so right, so noble, so perfect. There's no longer a need to search, for we have found. But what we have found, in turn, chose something and someone else. And we are left alone, with a heart leaden with love, heavy to carry, bruised and broken, but with no place to run, nowhere to turn.
For without love, what is the reason for life?
We spend our formative years (hopefully) being taught how it feels to be loved unconditionally. In the process, we (hopefully) also learn that being loved feels very good, because we will want to know that feeling even more once we grow up.
Along the way (hopefully) we are watching and learning from parents, grandparents, siblings and others how to love. We see the sacrifices made willingly. We see the small loving gestures, the tender touches, the loving looks, the caresses, the closeness, the sharing of all things -- good and bad, pretty and ugly -- so that we can do this one day for someone we love.
Then, when the time comes and both heart and mind, soul and body, are ready, we begin to search the world for the one we are meant, created and built to love. There will be false starts, blind alleys and dead ends along the way and the path may twist and turn, rise and fall and test our resolve, determination and endurance, but to not continue, to not push on is to consider a lifetime without love.
And that would be a hollow, lifeless experience. Far too sad to even consider.
So we keep searching in the faces, the eyes, the hearts of all we meet. Is it her? Can he be the one? Always pushing past each disappointment and picking up the search where we left it. Because our hearts demand that we keep looking until, at last, it finds the heart that completes us.
Not once in this journey do we ever consider that maybe we will find this one, this better half, this soulmate and they will, for reasons we cannot comprehend, choose a life without love. For it is one thing to think we may never find our "one." It is quite another to think that person will reject us completely.
And then it happens. We are stunned, shaken and lost. Because the cause seemed so right, so noble, so perfect. There's no longer a need to search, for we have found. But what we have found, in turn, chose something and someone else. And we are left alone, with a heart leaden with love, heavy to carry, bruised and broken, but with no place to run, nowhere to turn.
For without love, what is the reason for life?
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
WATCHING A MISTAKE
Short of losing them entirely, one of the hardest things is to watch someone you love make a mistake.
Not an "oops, I put too much peanut butter in my cookie recipe" kind of mistake, but the kind of error that ultimately may change them entirely.
It is hard to watch them walk away from love, give up on their talent, their gift or quit on themselves. You can't stop them because they have the God-given right to make their own choices and decisions. But it still hurts to watch them make that choice and know, in your heart and soul, that it is so horribly wrong for them.
Especially when, it can appear, they are, in essence, rejecting you and everything you once shared.
How can you just stand by and see someone you love decide they'd rather live with abuse, disrespect, dominance and parental-style control than with you? How can you accept that this person, whom you love without condition, would rather be with someone who treats them as less than an equal, less than a partner and more like a child, a worker, a slave, a piece of property? What can you do when you see them turn away from their God-given talent, a tremendous and powerful gift, a gift they once called "their reason for existing," just so they can be that much farther away from you? How can anyone watch the one they love give up on themselves and on love? How can you accept that they would rather feel nothing at all than continue to live a full array of emotions with you? What are you to think when you realize they would rather go the rest of their life totally numb than to spend another second experiencing a fuller life with you?
How do you deal with the stark reality that they'd rather feel nothing than to be with you?
But this is their choice and you have to make it. All you can do is hope that sometime, in some future, they will come to their senses and realize they've made a horrible mistake. And then you have to hope they can swallow their pride just enough to admit to themselves that they've made the mistake and take steps to at least take back their talent and themselves, even if they never can find it within themselves to come back to you.
But maybe, given enough time, they might realize that was a mistake too, and turn back to you anyway.
All you can do is watch, wait, hope and pray. Because the choice, ultimately, is theirs to make.
Not an "oops, I put too much peanut butter in my cookie recipe" kind of mistake, but the kind of error that ultimately may change them entirely.
It is hard to watch them walk away from love, give up on their talent, their gift or quit on themselves. You can't stop them because they have the God-given right to make their own choices and decisions. But it still hurts to watch them make that choice and know, in your heart and soul, that it is so horribly wrong for them.
Especially when, it can appear, they are, in essence, rejecting you and everything you once shared.
How can you just stand by and see someone you love decide they'd rather live with abuse, disrespect, dominance and parental-style control than with you? How can you accept that this person, whom you love without condition, would rather be with someone who treats them as less than an equal, less than a partner and more like a child, a worker, a slave, a piece of property? What can you do when you see them turn away from their God-given talent, a tremendous and powerful gift, a gift they once called "their reason for existing," just so they can be that much farther away from you? How can anyone watch the one they love give up on themselves and on love? How can you accept that they would rather feel nothing at all than continue to live a full array of emotions with you? What are you to think when you realize they would rather go the rest of their life totally numb than to spend another second experiencing a fuller life with you?
How do you deal with the stark reality that they'd rather feel nothing than to be with you?
But this is their choice and you have to make it. All you can do is hope that sometime, in some future, they will come to their senses and realize they've made a horrible mistake. And then you have to hope they can swallow their pride just enough to admit to themselves that they've made the mistake and take steps to at least take back their talent and themselves, even if they never can find it within themselves to come back to you.
But maybe, given enough time, they might realize that was a mistake too, and turn back to you anyway.
All you can do is watch, wait, hope and pray. Because the choice, ultimately, is theirs to make.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
LOVE REVIVED
What happens to love rejected or ignored? Does it die? Does it disappear? Does it go into hibernation, awaiting the return of the sunny smile of a lover?
Love, I believe, is like matter and energy -- it cannot be destroyed or lost; it is perpetual. It may change its form, or its location, or its level of passion or depth, but it is forever. But it can be given to another and never returned. They keep it and can either give it to another, or return it in kind to the one who first gave it.
Sometimes, it stays with us because another does not want it. It then can change from the passionate, flowing love to a colder, frozen, listless love that lingers but does not leave, that hibernates within the heart, awaiting the warmth of another to thaw it and bring it back to life.
Of course, not just any person can revive love. Only the right person, the right heart, the right matching love can bring the love in a heart back to life, can warm it back into a passionate state. Others may try, like all of those princes who tried to revive Sleeping Beauty, but only the right heart, the right kiss, the right love can reawaken the love laying idle in a heart.
Whether or not that love comes along and is willing to smile warmly on the heart laying idle and cold is outside the control of the one awaiting love's return. He or she can only wait in hope and faith, for that time to come. And believe the right love once again will come along to revive the love in the cold, idle heart.
Love, I believe, is like matter and energy -- it cannot be destroyed or lost; it is perpetual. It may change its form, or its location, or its level of passion or depth, but it is forever. But it can be given to another and never returned. They keep it and can either give it to another, or return it in kind to the one who first gave it.
Sometimes, it stays with us because another does not want it. It then can change from the passionate, flowing love to a colder, frozen, listless love that lingers but does not leave, that hibernates within the heart, awaiting the warmth of another to thaw it and bring it back to life.
Of course, not just any person can revive love. Only the right person, the right heart, the right matching love can bring the love in a heart back to life, can warm it back into a passionate state. Others may try, like all of those princes who tried to revive Sleeping Beauty, but only the right heart, the right kiss, the right love can reawaken the love laying idle in a heart.
Whether or not that love comes along and is willing to smile warmly on the heart laying idle and cold is outside the control of the one awaiting love's return. He or she can only wait in hope and faith, for that time to come. And believe the right love once again will come along to revive the love in the cold, idle heart.
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