Having been emotionally leveled by a failed live-in relationship that he expected to lead to marriage, my friend Jeff - cute as a teddy bear, bright, smart, funny, generous, sweet, and a sharp dresser - hangs back, afraid to offer his heart again and risk a second rejection. He has come to trust his own fear and uncertainty more than his instincts, come to rely on keeping company with loneliness rather than take a chance. He was wholeheartedly in love and the memory still haunts him.
Time dulls the sharp edges of breaking up but it passes slowly. We invest ourselves in other people, sometimes with everything we have to give, and the last thing we expect is to be thrown over, it shocks our senses and distorts reality to a point where we run and hide, unwilling to trust another soul, unable to imagine life ever making it up to us. We mend only when we face the pain and move past it, realizing that it happens to us all, that it may be life altering and devastating, unendurable and agonizing, but rarely fatal. Breaking up make us all sad poets writing tragic verse that no one else wants to read. We think our heartache to be unique and misunderstood and when we meet someone who has not only survived but discovered the will to try again, we write them off - They didn't love the way I did, we tell ourselves, They didn't have what I had and lost.
Except we did. We all did. And most of us all will again.
Fate is a gameplayer and life is just a round in the game. You win, you lose, you retire, then make a comeback. Broken hearts don't stay broken no matter how we may try. One way or another, we all get in the game and whether we play fair or cheat, the game goes on.
O, happy day. Jeff has met a girl. It makes me smile inside and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment