The words that follow were written January 2, 2022. They were written, in part, because I didn’t want to forget certain details about an event in my life. They were also to be the beginning of a story……about the endurance of hope and faith, seeing that in another person, letting go, living in the moment, synchronicity, unconditional love, spiritual growth, and a return to self.
But the story was abandoned, much like we do with many of our ideas……dreams…..relationships. We’ve all been abandoned and have abandoned. We all have let go of some things and have embraced others. I can’t say why we make the choices me make, only that we must make choices…..and while those choices close doors, they also open them.
Perhaps that’s what this story would have been about had I continued telling it…..the doors that have opened for me since the event. They weren’t the doors I was expecting to open. They didn’t lead me to a loving partner or companionship. Instead, they led me back to myself……and self-love, compassion, grace, travel opportunities galore, spiritual connection, and a path I was always drawn to walk. I suppose I might also say that they led me to a newfound sense of “us”……though “us” is something I feel more than I can actually describe or define. Maybe it’s what some refer to as a twin flame or some sort of soul-mate. Or maybe, it’s the collective “us,” comprising all life on earth. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter.
This is where that story began…..with an ending……
It’s early and we’re still in bed, but we’ve been awake long enough. I turn over on my side and begin to run my hands over his bare back. I know it so well now….the feel of his skin….each blemish.
“I could do this forever,” I tell him.
He laughs slightly, but I hear something in his voice that sounds less than receptive to that idea. Too much unspoken. We need to have a talk. I know this, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of complicating things for him or creating some sort of needless expectation. I’m afraid that it has to end or that it’s already over….whatever it is that we’ve been doing.
I wrap my arm around him from behind and we rest like spoons in silence. He takes my hand temporarily and I try to stay in the moment. This visit has been different. He didn’t kiss me when I first arrived at his house three days earlier and he pulled away the few times he started to kiss me in bed. Nevertheless, there had been physical intimacy….even just a few minutes earlier.
I decide to say more. “I wrote something about you.”
He sighs and there’s an awkward silence before he starts to turn over onto his back. I reposition myself, laying with my body pressed to his side and my arm resting on his chest. Another sigh from him and I think, here it comes.
He grabs my hand and squeezes, but still doesn’t speak. Just the exhale of another big breath and the darkness of the unknown.
“That’s a whole lot of sighing,” I say to him.
“Yeah,” he replies in acknowledgement…and then nothing.
I wait.
Finally, the words come.
“I think this has run its course as a romantic relationship,” he says.
And that’s when it stops….it all stops. The flow of blood in my veins, the pumping of my pathetic heart, time. And there I lay, suspended between life and death….in that moment where I know my time in this world is over, but the light hasn’t yet completely left my eyes.
***
Minutes later, I am up and getting dressed….quickly. I want out of there….out of this house….out of the moment in which I had been living….out of the moment in which I am now living. My eyes take in the room one last time. The old bed with a blue comforter covered in cat hair; the folding table with microwave, hot plate, and coffee maker; the carpet squares and wardrobe; the white faux brick wall; old curtains at the window that look like they’re stained with blood; clothes hamper; cat dishes, cat bed, scratching post; and two folding chairs…..one by the bed and the other by the doorway covered with a sheet. I realize that I’ll never see the rest of the house completed. But who am I? A new calendar that looks like something his ex-wife must have ordered hangs on the wall….complete with photos of his kids. There’s a coffee mug too…and a robe from Korea (I believe) folded by the chair. Wonder who he wore that for or who wore it for him. Does it matter? I am an intruder. The place I had started to feel like maybe I belonged is now a place I don’t.
He can’t wait for me to leave, either….and seems relieved that it’s over. My eyes are still red from crying. The details of him and all of the places associated will forever be burned in my memory. What happened here? How did I get so caught up in this?
Luckily, I have the drive back to my friend’s house in Des Moines to think about it all and cry more. Leaving Cedar Rapids is a lot like death….and birth. Either way, it’s a whole new world. Either way, it’s a loss of the comfortable and familiar and it’s scary. But Des Moines is its own familiar. My friend of over 30 years is there, waiting. I find some peace in this…that I have a place in which to return.
A different friend once shared something that comes to mind as I drive. He said it’s not just important to know what you’re running from, but what or who you’re running to. I wonder…to what or who am I running? I no sooner ask the question and the answer is already there…..
And this is where my telling of the event ends…..on a cliffhanger. Being that this was written more than two years ago about an event that had taken place months before that, I don’t even know what I was about to write. To what was I running? Where was my mind in that moment?
I may not know the answer I came up with that day, but that’s not important. Today has its own answers. What I was running from wasn’t him at all…..but myself and my own spiritual nature and connection. What I was running to was also exactly that same thing.
You see, we can’t run from ourselves. We can’t run from who we are at the soul level…..though our earthly selves want to do this. We mistakenly think our mind is king…..or our egos and programming. I was hurt and wanted to run away from the pain and humiliation. It’s highly likely that what I wanted to run to was something that eased the pain and fed the ego…..but I couldn’t do it. Call it DNOTS or whatever you want…..but the illusion was shattered. The pain was inescapable, but so was the light. The ego cannot be fed because it doesn’t exist…..and the only king here is the one that lives beyond the veil of this fabricated existence.
And perhaps, that king is us…..the unified and collective whole of all of our energies working together behind the curtain to teach ourselves and each other the true nature of all things, compassion, honor, grace, unconditional love……
Just a thought for today.
Jeanie Unbottled 