One of the most difficult parts of living is found in the waiting. The in-between times ask us to let go of the answers to questions we barely know. Oftentimes, we discover that we may even be asking the wrong questions. Nonetheless, standing still is hard.
I have experienced most of my time here on earth through chaos. Some of which I have created, some that I have not. This frenzied pattern of existing appeals to me in many ways. I am a person who is always on the go, always moving, always looking towards the next thing. In some ways, this has given me adventure beyond my expectations. I have no shortage of interesting and exhilarating stories to pull from, stories that I never dreamed would be my own to tell. But I also have many sorrows, many tales of suffering. Chaos is an intoxicating companion, but takes a great deal from us in the destruction she leaves behind.
Recently, I fell in love. There's no other way to state it. One day I was asleep, and the next I was awake, wide awake. I knew it deep down, I recognized it as if it were an old friend who had returned after many, many years away. Both strange and familiar, it brought me home. Home to myself, home to the world around me. Falling in love gives us a way of seeing that can only be found through the process, it touches the most intimate parts of who we are and names our very soul.
Loving someone and being loved, it changed me.
But, like many passionate love stories, chaos descended and troubled our happy hearts. What do you do when love is not enough? When you can't make it work, when it seems like who each of you are cannot overcome the obstacles in front of you? When you hurt each other because you have each been hurt?
How can someone hold your heart so tenderly and simultaneously break it to pieces?
Each day, I wonder at the mystery in front of me. I have loved and been loved, and still love eluded me. I found a partner, someone who walked with ease into my life, and yet just as easily walked out. It feels like there is a bit of me missing, a ghost always at my side. Losing love is the answer to a question I never wanted to ask, one that has left me confused, untethered, and lost to the ocean of my own loneliness. What do you do when love leaves you, especially when it never wanted to go in the first place, when it wanted to stay but knew it wasn't the right time or place?
I am haunted by these questions, with nothing to do but offer my empty hands back to the universe.
And so, I wait. I listen to my heart beating, my breath breathing, I watch the season change. I see the tree outside my window exploding in a brilliant, vibrant yellow, and marvel at the beauty that continues on without me. I make peace with myself. I hold my broken soul and whisper words of healing little by little, asking it to please stay awake despite its painful protests to be left alone. I look for signs of comfort in the distance.
In this time, I notice a lighthouse on the horizon, perched majestically atop the George Washington Bridge. I do a bit of research and find that it is the last aviator beacon, over 75 years old. Since planes no longer operate by this method of guidance, the light is completely ornamental. It was left as a memorial to a pilot who crashed in search of his own grand expedition, and continues to call him home. I find this grounding, this timeless commitment to those of us who are still trying to find our way back.
We all get a little lost along the way. We lose ourselves, lose the ones we love. Elizabeth Lesser, a gifted author and practicing doula, writes about this often. She believes that who we are at our core gets clouded over the years by our personal tragedies, the chaos that mixes us up and leaves us uncentered. We forget who are, and thus, life is not about healing so much as it is about remembering.
The storms we have come to weather are only distracting us from the light of our own sun, the light that has been within us from the very beginning.
I'm still working to clear my vision, to see and seek with truth rather than fear. I so wish that my love was enough to bring others back to themselves, but I am no miracle worker. Love sparks an awareness within ourselves, but it is up to us to see it through. To hold on to it, to internalize it and let it fill our empty places until we ourselves are full.
I am grateful I have learned what is to to be loved, what it is to make my way back from the wilderness.
Back to myself.
Back to who I was always meant to be.
How terrifying it is to return to vulnerability.
How tempting it is to go back to sleep.
To stand in the unknown still knowing that being loved is better than being alone.
To recognize that love within myself.
To understand the sunshine deep in my soul.
And to continue to look for the beacon in the distance, to wait with all my hope.
Because love, in any form, is eternal.
But we must stay awake to find it, we must keep our watch in the night.
For even in the dark it is waiting, and it will always find its way back home.
