Working it through: A dialogue with self

A little background.....

I dated someone from the age of 17 until I was approximately 24. It didn't really end until I was 26 or so. Though I loved this person very much, and respected him as much or more than anyone, I was not good to him. I might argue that I was young. Yes, I was. I was fun, spontaneous, affectionate, and loving (according to my then understanding). I was also a bit of an emotional tyrant. I expected him to be giving and loving and kind and respectful and accommodating, which he was.... to a fault. While I held the bar high for him, I was not always those things to him. I don't know that I could see it then, but in hindsight, I do. Clearly. As you will see - old habits die hard.
Another thing about me. If I have loved someone, I always love them. Letting them go completely is like trying to pry a T-bone from the jaws of a pit bull. I don't do it willingly, or easily.
I have never felt good about how things ended with this person. I have always held him in the highest esteem and have always wanted to "right" things with him. Explain. Renew friendship. Evolve into something else. I have spent many years not giving up on this endeavor. It has never gone particularly well. Though in the background of my full and meaningful life, it has haunted me.

Recently, I talked to someone who knows this person. Essentially, this is what he said to me:

For his sake, and yours let it go. Leave him be. In his life, his marriage, his world view, there is no room for you. He is not ready -- no, not willing, to consider any sort of revisiting with you. He is not social. He is not interested in expanding his life outside of the few people in it. He lives his life in an expected, comfortable way, and he is completely content in it. He is not pained over you. He is healed and moved on. When I think of qualities I recognized in you so long ago, I can see that you have become more of that. Wide and expansive, full of life. When I think of qualities that I saw in him, I see that he has become more of that. It has moved you both in completely opposite directions. Neither good, nor bad. There is just no room for anything other than letting it go.

My thoughts:
Ouch. If you know me, you know that was not an easy pill to swallow. Hearing it made it very clear that the girl in me, who needs to know she is loved regardless of her behavior, is still trying to run the show. What I think my friend was saying to me is that even if this person were willing to allow some sort of friendship to exist (which he isn't), he believes that I would not find what I hope to find. That based on what he knows of me, it would be an exercise in futility and interpersonal frustration. I think my friend was trying to tell me that I have grown into a place...and this person has grown into a very different place... and that they are very far apart places. I also think that my friend was trying to tell me that there is nothing for me in trying to return to a place that does not exist.

My message to me:

My friend. Perhaps, rather than looking for vindication in this person's eyes, you need to seek it from yourself. You seek to love. Both others and yourself. It is not loving to make it someone else's responsibility to free you from choices you made in your past. You need to let yourself off of the hook. Realize that you have grown, and you have changed, and so has everyone that you have affected. You desire this person's forgiveness and approval. What now, that you cannot have it? From whom can you seek it? From yourself. It is not that this person is willfully withholding from you. It's that it doesn't exist for him. It exists for you, and therefore is your responsibility. If you want him to know that you are loving, then act from love. You have misunderstood your own motivation. You have believed that managing (or trying to) and positioning in order to express yourself is working toward love. Truthfully, have you not been emotionally strong-arming this person so that you feel better about yourself? If, what he longs for is to be free of the past, and of you, is it not loving to trust life and to willingly provide that? Know that you are ok, no matter what you did, and what you caused. Know that he is ok too. It is not your job to fix it anymore.
I ask you, my friend, to give this person the greatest gift you have. Let go. Release. Trust. and Love.

A gift unwrapped.

A connection with
someone
from long, long ago.

A person who was not a prominant note in the soundtrack of my life
but one who hovered in the perifery

circles of lives barely intersecting

heard about me through
a name woven lightly amidst
stories of other people
and other times.

One who did not, along side me,trudge through the mud and growth
of my life
But could, from that vantage point
see the splatter that occasionally happened as I ran rough shod
through my own story.

Someone,
to be honest, I was not always sure liked me very much.

A man eater
I believe was a term applied to me.

Ouch.

A moment, I'm sure, long forgotten.

And despite the shadow of one of
many people
on the outskirts of the
production of my being

I noticed
this
person.

Wise. Determined. Outspoken. Willing. Inquisitive. Driven. Intuitive.

Some of those qualities scared me.
Caused me to wonder
caused me to
perhaps
cower just a little.

A million years ago.

Not knowing that
while big hair
blue eye shadow
Valley Girl sang on the fm radio
a seed
of friendship
had perhaps been
planted.

and lay dormant in the safety of years and years.

A gift having lain unwrapped and unnoticed while life progressed.

Only to offer the possibility of
a
friendship.

Now.

Shall I?

Shall i come to you?
Shall i?

Will i walk toward you and realize that that
there is no difference between
what makes you you
and what
makes me me?

That we are both part of the same
spectacular painting.

Might I move toward the beauty and uniqueness
of who you are?

Realizing

that there is nothing
that who you are
can
take from who i am.

There is only more than can
be had
by both of us.

An indulgent feast of life.

Combing colors of you
with colors of me.
creating breath taking awareness of truth,
full of texture and newness and depth before not known.

Won't I experience the awe of abundance?
The richness not of gold or diamonds,
but of life.
Of sharing the breath that gives life to life.

The
I
AM
.

The wonder of relationship.

Might i look toward you and realize that there is no
barrier between us?
That it is only an illusion...
a lie
that keeps me
housed within the guise of walls
that I experience as surrounding me.

Can i?
Take the risk to give?
to take?
to blend and experience?
to dance with that and who which is not familiar to my human
limited
mind.
To challenge the lie that there is something to lose?

Perhaps I could.
Perhaps I will.

With arms open and heart accepting,
come to you.
And releasing the lie that there is division
fall deeply in love
with the rest of me.
the rest of you.

I think I might.

So
much more
than the walls
of this
house.


Yes


I shall come to you.
and I shall know.


Abundance.