iAgape

The truth is to me that I was caught in the storm/that I wasn't alone.

[4agape]

I loved you completely. Apparently it wasn't enough. I gave you all of me. I loved all of you. I supported you without end. Apparently it wasn't enough. I know I wasn't perfect. But you chose a lesser. I would have always been true. Apparently it wasn't enough. You broke me. Destroyed my ideal of you. Still I can't stop loving you. Apparently I wasn't enough.

[4agape]

Mantra

[4agape]

(1)

"It's not that you can fall in love with someone new because you forgot the old. It's because you fall in love with someone new, that you're able to forget about the old. Only love can heal a heart that was hurt by love."

[4agape]

Self-reliance

“I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should.”

[4agape]

Moving on?

Do I still miss her, or do I just miss missing her?

[4agape]

Nevermind

Apparently some people had a case of the fuck-arounds and I was ripe for the picking.

[4agape]

Shock

What are you doing?

I can't even begin to process your actions.

Everything you've ever professed about this, that you've stubbornly clung to for as long as I've known you,

thrown aside in epic fashion in one night's binge.

And it was all by your invitation, your initiation, your desire.

You feared your own weakness, your own desire, your lineage's predisposition.

You said you would never indulge because of what might take hold of you.

Tonight that's thrown aside spectacularly.

I know where your head is, I know the darkness you've been battling, I know how much tougher it's gotten.

Starting this now, are you looking for a new escape?

Is it him? Are you embracing his way, his path, his distractions?

Is he the influence or simply the means?

You have abandoned the tools of healing, cathartic talking and supportive aids.

Is this the method you've settled upon instead? Numbing yourself with a new concoction?

You're playing with fire.

I'm afraid you will get burned by far more than you bargained for.

Please let this be a momentary release, and not the beginning of a new path for you.

I am scared, I feel helpless.

Everything you do feels so far away from me.

I don't feel like a part of you, a part of your life anymore.

I see you walking away from the path of healing, and skirting with the path of destruction.

You need help, but don't seem willing or able to embrace it.

I've come to face the hard reality that there is nothing I can really do.

I will always love you, support you, and be here for you.

But your path is your path to walk.

I only hope you find the right one to bring you back to yourself and true joy.

Right now I'm just in shock, shock at how life can unwind and people can too.

[4agape]

Helpless

I see the pain behind your eyes,

the struggle hidden behind the joy of your smile.

You've been doing all you can to keep yourself going,

holding your head above water without anyone knowing.

I want to help you and support you,

do whatever I can do alleviate your burden.

But the wall behind your brave face is deep,

and you don't want to let anyone know you can't sleep.

You have so much strength in you and will to hold on,

but you also have stubbornness that won't allow you to embrace help.

Let us in, share your load, don't hide your battle,

the army of those who love you will embrace you unrattled.

It isn't weakness to talk and to take in little aids,

it's bravery to reach out and seek all the tools you can.

I wish so much that I could ease your hurt and bring back the light,

but I'm helpless but to watch and hope you again can take flight.

[4agape]

Glimmer?

Turning point? Cleansed? Finally moving beyond? Learning not to care while caring? Hold onto the mantra. Remember the hard truth. Reality. It is what it is and that's all that it is. Hope.

[4agape]

Gut Punch...

Sometime Around Midnight...

[4agape]

Exiled

I know you...

I know you better than most.

I see the you that exists behind the bright veil you put on for the benefit of others.

Yet, I know there is still a part of you held back, locked up, even partly from yourself.

What are you doing?

What is going on?

I don't understand.

But I care.

I'm worried.

I'm confused.

I miss you...I miss us, and I know I shouldn't.

But I do.

Are you ok?

I want to help.

I want to be there.

I used to be the one that knew the most, was the closest, could touch you and see YOU.

Now I feel exiled, left out, in the dark...it hurts, it aches, and I worry.

I know the darkness in you. I wanted to be some light.

Having been so close to you, so deeply connected, it feels so empty to now be shut out...to be just another one of the countless people that care, love, and want the best for you, but who are held at a distance.

It's selfish, petty, trite, but to have been near the top, when you are so amazing, it hurts to have fallen from that position.

I don't know how to feel or what to do.

But I miss you and want you to be happy.

I just wish it was with me.

[4agape]

Letting go...

Why can't I let go?

Holding on only hurts me more.

My mind won't stop racing, thinking, over-thinking.

It could be nothing. It could be exactly what I think it is, what I fear, what makes it hard to breath to even consider.

Yet, the hard truth is, it shouldn't fucking matter at all.

But it does...it does.

It's not fair...none of this has ever been fair, from start to finish, for either of us.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why did it end up like this?

Was this the only option?

It makes no sense.

That I can't stop thinking about it, that it pains me still, that makes even less sense.

My mind knows the fundamental truth and reality, what must happen...but my heart just won't listen.

It all seems almost in reach, yet insurmountably far away.

I want to let go...I don't want to let go.

?

[4agape]

Progress

The heart and mind are amazing things, able to heal and cope and eventually move on. They're not perfect, however, and are prone to weakness, self-doubt, and painful yearning.

Progress and letting go is forever a one and a half steps forward, and one step back process...if you're lucky.

Letting go of something you hoped to hold onto forever, especially when it is still almost in reach...there's the rub.

[4agape]

Loss

What hurts more than not being able to be with who you want?

Not being able to be with who you want...anymore.

[4agape]

I miss you

It hurts, but I don't want to let you go.

There is an empty space beside me, inside me, that is in the shape of you.

It hurts, but I don't want to let you go.

My mind, my heart, swim in memories of you, drowning in what we were.

It hurts, but I don't want to let you go.

I don't know if I'd rather hurt holding onto you, or hurt letting you go.

[4agape]

Unfair

We are all familiar with the phrase "life isn't fair." We say it to ourselves when things don't go the way we want, or tell it to others when they recount the disappointments they face. But often times it's only a shallow admonition, a passing acknowledgement of the innate challenges of life. Rarely do most of us have to stop and face, to experience and feel, the frustration and pain of something truly and deeply unfair that is foisted upon us seemingly by life's whimsy.

I think that it might be easier to understand this when it's something that is happening to someone else, someone you care about. When unfortunate things happen to us, we can sometimes get lost in our own self-perceptions and explain things away as "my own fault" or the result of some shortcoming or failure of ourselves by ourselves, thus taking the fault and responsibility into us. But when we see it in others, we are able to see the whole picture objectively, see that the fault lies not with the other person, but with some circumstance beyond their control, and that they are not the least bit deserving of the hardships they are facing. It is here that life's unfairness can become poignantly real.

I was like most people, casually tossing around "life isn't fair" like some wizened sage, deep with the wisdom and experience of life. But it has only been in the last few months that I have come to truly understand, and achingly feel, just how unfair life can truly be. I've seen first hand how someone so deeply good, so immensely deserving of happiness, can be completely overwhelmed by sadness and self-loathing to the point of barely being able to keep on going, and at times not even wanting to. I've experienced how the immense outpouring of love, support, and care to that person can amount to almost nothing, not because they don't want it, but because it simply cannot penetrate the dark fog that they never asked to surround them. We are then both left in a situation where one struggles to help as the other struggles to survive, and neither really being able to have intentions and actions meet and bring improvement. Instead what could have been so good ends up as nothing despite neither ones' desire for it to be so.

This is so unfair.

She never asked for this, and she didn't do anything to deserve this. She is the most wonderful person I have known, someone so full of genuine compassion and joy as to literally create love in all those around her. Why then has she been forced to experience such punishing despair? Why can she, who gives out so much love and joy, not be allowed to experience the love and joy being sent back to her? Why will she, despite  deep intelligence and maturity in so many areas, be so stubborn in her views on her options for help?

This is so unfair.

I have given everything I can; compassion, understanding, concern, advice, support, even distance, but little, if any of it, seems to truly help or maybe even get through. I've learned that it is wholly within her to facilitate improvement, I have no direct influence or say in anything. She will need help, but unless she wants it and accepts it, then whatever is sent her way will not amount to much. The feeling of frustration is almost unbearable when you are in a situation where you want so badly to help them get better, and they want to get better, but nothing seems able to get done for reasons that sometimes make no sense. It is also so painful to love someone, love them truly, and know they love you too, and also know that for now it isn't enough. You are left in a situation where you want more than anything to be with someone you love, and know they want to be with you, but despite this the two of you are not together. Why? There is no good answer. There are reasons, unsatisfying, frustrating, painful reasons, but nothing good as an answer.

It is with all this that I now know, and keenly feel, just how life can be so unfair, and it is unfair.

[4agape]

Risk & Reward of Love

The scariest and most courageous thing we can do in life is to open ourselves to loving others and being loved by them. The act of opening our hearts to the giving and taking of love opens us to the possibility of the greatest joy and fulfillment we can hope to have. However, this opening of our hearts also opens us to the possibility of the greatest pain and suffering we can experience in life.

To not love, to stay closed off, aloof, distant, from the true depth of feeling that is love, is a safe but shallow existence. To know love is to open yourself to knowing the aching and yearning of love lost. Yet, it also opens us to the full breadth of happiness that can only come through a deep connection with another person.

I do not relish the heartache that is the price and risk of loving. The unyielding ache and yearning for someone else, for the feeling of happiness and fulfillment shared between the two of you, the constant cycle of thinking about the happier past, the bitter present, and the uncertain future. In the depths of it you can almost wish that you never had felt the love at all, as not ever having known it is to also not ever have to know what it is like to be without it.

Still, having tasted both sides of the coin, the bitterness of heartache and the airy sweetness of happiness, I know in my heart that love is undoubtedly worth it. It isn't easy to find or hold onto, and it takes work even at the best of times. But the feeling in your heart of knowing that there is someone in this life that truly cares about you, that is completely there for you, and accepting of all of you in all your mix of good, bad, and ugly without judgement, that is a feeling that is incomparable and worth any passing pain. Because the truth about love is that the heartache is always temporary, but the love, when it is right, can warm you forever, even when it's only a memory.

For all this and more, I chose Love.