Here we stand
Worlds apart, hearts broken in two (two, two)
Sleepless nights
Losing ground
I'm reaching for you (you, you)
I especially dig those repeats! But I digress, back to you, you master of the mullet, Steve Perry:
Someday love will find you
Break those chains that bind you
One night will remind you
How we touched
And went our separate ways
If he ever hurts you
True love won't desert you
You know I still love you
Though we touched
And went our separate ways
Aside from sheer listening pleasure, this song has been kicking around in my mind during a couple of recent episodes in my relationship. Though the song is not about jealousy per se, it does remind us of the fact that we've all loved before, sometimes it's a marriage and sometimes it's a fleeting affair, but all of these contacts of the heart change us, I believe mostly for the good. I believe that, about both my own past loves and my lover's, but depending on how firmly rooted I am in myself in a given moment, it can be hard to feel that belief. I also believe that the amount of love we have to give is not finite, and therefore having loved someone else, or even still loving someone else, doesn't take away from our present ability to love, but it can be hard sometimes to remember that when jealousy washes over us:
Troubled times
Caught between confusion and pain (pain, pain)
Distant eyes
Promises we make were in vain (in vain, vain)
Case in point: coming back from our magical weekend in the U.P., my boyfriend and I were sitting outside at a lovely waterfront pub having a late lunch. I was telling him that I was sad that I would never get to meet his Mom (she passed away). He immediately started talking about how much his first serious girlfriend had loved his Mom, and about things his first wife had appreciated about her. For him, these were positive memories, happy associations with cherised loved ones. When I started to cry and said that it was hard for me to hear that, he bristled at having to edit himself.
Neither of our feelings were wrong, it's just an example of a time when it is difficult to really feel what you know to be true in the best part of yourself: there's enough love to go around, and around and around. It might also be an example of when it would have been beneficial for him to first attend to the feelings I had just expressed and then express his, but that's easier to see in retrospect than it is to do in the moment. I know, I've been the one not properly attending to my partner's feelings -- in fact, I think i was guilty of that this morning.
The other example was a moment of jealousy my boyfriend had when I was talking about a man with whom I had a very short, passionate post-marital affair that really changed me. I've written about him before -- my friends and I refer to him as Jesus. (One of the blog posts about him is aptly titled Hey Jealousy.) He's the one that was so gentle with me, telling me that my eyes were sad, and allowing me to connect to something beautiful (him and the image of him on his beloved windsurf board) - - a beacon to help show the way through the pain I was feeling. We didn't keep in touch -- I don't even know his last name -- and I don't need to know it. He was just the Universe's way of reminding me of a truth when I was so separated from it; there are good men out there and I'm worthy of their love:
If you must go, I wish you love
You'll never walk alone
Take care my love
Miss you love
And now I've found a good man to love and to let love me. Some days that's more challenging from one end, some days from the other. While it's true that the road that my boyfriend and I are currently walking is not without its bumps, I'm grateful not to be walking alone, and I have a keen understanding that the bumps would be bigger, the uphills steeper, and the swooping downhills much less frequent than they are when we are walking (or riding) together...
No comments:
Post a Comment