Heal

Life's little irony is that we might receive compassion, admiration, and tenderness from the same person who could wound, cripple, and scar us. Whether we're aware of it or not, life teaches us that to love is to risk: we must gamble total vulnerability in hope that our partner will do us no harm and show selflessness even in the face of adversity in their lives. And nothing is guaranteed other than - more times than not - we might find love in exchange for a lot of hurt.

To me, the preamble of two googly-eyed people falling deep in love and spending hours together to emerge as some glowing, floating, idyllic, unified soul is entirely unremarkable. Yeah, we see that shit every day.

Further, to me, it isn't entirely novel to see the myriad of events and antagonists that eventually come along to undo things or to cast doubt on the unions' little imperfections. We intuitively all know that nothing perfect goes unnoticed for too long by the universe.

And, to me, the dreary, trite, long-anticipated conclusion is such a tiresome bore - a sad realization, a break-up, terrible dispair, perhaps even a mortal wound, a pleasant speach that should have been given in the first place, and, alas, the death of the perfect thing.

"See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love."
--Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Instead, what is whole-heartedly remarkable to me is the capacity and willingness we all have to heal... that, somewhere and sometime between the death of love and the birth of another love affair (yet one more that will surely deal the final blow)... we heal. It's pretty cool. It's almost as if nature gave us an uncanny ability to regenerate, scar, grow a tiny bit tougher, and to forgive, to forget, and to try again. It's amazing that we all don't lie down and just give up. Love hurts.

This weekend, I spent time with three lovely women who're healing from loves lost, love in trial, and love in transition. What's remarkable, I think, is their story. It's not the story of who they were with this guy or who they were without that guy or what that guy is or isn't, does or doesn't do. Healing from love is almost an act of "re-self-discovery" and rediscovery of our own intrinsic value: its the realization of how love changed us without destroying us, and that's a beautiful story of transformation... a more important story. That's the one we should be listening to.

s1m0n