One Way Street

This morning I awoke with a heavy heart. I told my favorite New Englander before I left that I was going to need to cut the cord and not have contact with him, but I haven't been ready to do that just yet. There were still things I wanted to say. Saying my piece is important, and it's part of the process. But so is dealing with the fact that the person on the other end isn't really hearing it, or if he is, he isn't responding. Maybe even can't respond right now. I had the sense when I was out there that he was really protecting himself. My therapist used to show me the ways in which he was holding me at arm's length, even when I didn't see that. I didn't want to see that.

The East Coaster and I were talking on this trip about when we fell in love. I explained how huge it was for me to have someone listen to me for so many hours, really see who I am as a human being, and fall in love with me as I was falling in love with him. That hadn't happened before, in large part because I hadn't known who I was and wasn't out in the world as my true self until around the time I met him. Remembering this, he said "That was such a big time for me." And I thought yeah, it was. Because for whatever reason -- be it the glow of new love or the timing or maybe we'll never know -- it was a time when he didn't feel the need to protect himself. When he could let himself be vulnerable. When he was opening to possibility rather than closing inward. We used to talk about crawling into our space together -- it felt so good to do that -- even over the phone. And it's just not possible now, with him so far inside his own head, his own heart, his own body. The way those parts of us combined was absolutely magical.

Once you know that magic, it's very difficult not to feel robbed when it becomes out of reach. Just out of reach, though, not miles. It's like losing by the smallest possible margin. You're losing, but you can taste victory, it was yours, you thought it was yours, and then it wasn't.

I've tried to both explain to him and understand myself what I felt was happening to us but it doesn't seem to be something I can really influence. So this morning I turned on some guided meditations to see if that would help me get some clarity. I started with Buddha Transforms Difficulties, where Jack Kornfield encourages you to conjure up a tough situation and then visualize a spiritual leader like Buddha helping you see another way to be with the problem. At the beginning I was yelling the word "No!" and by the end, I was breathing more calmly. It didn't feel like a big epiphany, but it was a shift.

The next one I did was Forgiveness meditation. That one was juicier. The meditation takes you through three different aspects of forgiveness. Asking others for forgiveness, forgiving yourself, and forgiving others. The first one didn't really resonate today, but the second one, forgiving yourself, really did.

That aspect of the guided meditation goes like this:

"Feel your own sorrows and regret, and sense that finally, you can release this burden and ask and extend forgiveness.

In the many ways that I have hurt and harmed myself, betrayed or abandoned myself, knowingly or unknowingly, out of my pain and fear, out of confusion and anger and hurt. I remember these now, and I offer myself forgiveness.

I forgive myself.
I hold myself in mercy and kind forgiveness.
I offer myself forgiveness in all that I've done. I forgive myself. I forgive myself.

And I do. I know that I only betrayed and abandoned myself because I thought I needed to do that to be loved. I know better now.

And then the third direction began -- forgiving others -- and I got in touch with something sort of unexpected and big -- I'm not ready to forgive my former lover yet. I thought I was. I said I was. But I'm not ready to forgive him for walking away from our love, and in doing so, walking away from himself. I understand he did it to walk back to another part of him, but the only way to do that without abandoning me was to let me in on the decision. He didn't do that. And to this day, he seems to be willing to throw away something that feels to me like it is worth more than that.

But, as the Boss reminds us in the song that came on iTunes right after my guided meditation, love cannot be sustained as a one way street, and I'm afraid -- though it didn't start out that way -- that's what ours became:

Well, if the sun should fall from the sky tomorrow
If the rain brings a tear to your eye I would share your sorrow
If you must go then take your leave
Our love was strong, our love was sweet

But we were walking on the wild side
Running down a one way street

In the night, I see only the fire in your eyes
The morning light brings the shadows of your lies
And so the change has come today
And for our wrongs, well, we must pay

We were walking on the wild side
Running down a one way street

Oh, my darling, I must, I must confess
This can't be love, no, I am just a man possessed
And so the tide has turned today
We can turn and walk away

'Cause we were walking on the wild side
Running down a one way street, yes, we are
Girl, we're walking on the wild side
Running down a one way street

Were we? It didn't feel that way for a long time. It felt like the safest, most mutually beneficial arrangement imaginable. Until it didn't...