Puzzle Pieces
Teachers Of The Heart
They are there.
For some of you, they number only a few. For others, there’s a crowd forming. But they are there.
They have faces, smells, voices. They clog up familiar places where you rarely or never see them anymore. And, still, they are there.
They are demons or angels. You despise them or remember them with a certain sentimental fondness. They are the hazy ghosts of your past, not a vital presence in your life now, but still they are there ... there inside of you.
Yes, I know, you have put them away. They live only in dark places now — in closets, trunks, or shoe boxes tucked away under your bed. Their faces are frozen in time with a smile or a grimace or a look of idiocy as they stare back at you in photographs, images of your time with them, remote now, stored away with other tokens — letters or poems or cards they gave to you — reminders that they loved you once. You loved them too. Yes, you did. No matter how hard it may be to admit it, you loved them too.
You held them in your arms. Your lips touched their lips, their cheeks, their eyelids. You gave them your time. You gave them your attention. You walked with them. You danced with them, laughed with them, shared a birthday or a holiday with them. You ate with them. You travelled with them. You listened to them talk, and you listened to them breathing beside you in your bed. You dreamed about the future with them.
The future. You looked into tomorrow with them. There were promises, sometimes vague, sometimes so real that nothing could ever possibly undo them. Some wore a ring for you; some even took your name. Some were all you ever hoped for; some were more than you ever dreamed possible.
And then ... a pause, an end. The dream that you trusted and cherished suddenly melted away into a pool of accusations, pleading, anger, and tears.
We stagger into love with a hope that each new lover will be our last. That is the beauty and the danger of romance, and I suspect, there is no other way to love. Still, the danger remains. If you love unconditionally, you risk unconditional heartache, and the sorrow of a lost love is like no other.
Some say the sadness passes with time. That may be so, but the love you felt never disappears. It is, instead, transformed into a wrinkle etched across the face of your emotions forever. Hide it if you must. Seek solace from family, friends, books, or religion. Just know that, no matter what you do, they are there. They will always be there.
Every lover who once entered your life still remains a part of your life. Each one remains a piece of the puzzle that tells the story of your longing for love. Some fit into your life for a while, some you forced into a misshapen void in your heart, some did not fit at all. Do not forsake them. Do not demean them. Do not hide from their memory. Instead, remember that you loved each of them once, and understand how that experience changed you for good or for bad. Understand that each past love has been a necessary stage of your journey towards discovering a final love. Do not loathe those whom you lost, those who dismissed you, or those who were stolen from you. Respect the fact that they are there still, these teachers of the heart, locked inside of you, embodied by you, and possibly even shaping how you will love tomorrow.
This post deserves a much deeper response than what can be posted in a line or two on a reply form.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteAnd then ... a pause, an end. The dream that you trusted and cherished suddenly melted away into a pool of accusations, pleading, anger, and tears.
ReplyDeleteIt has long been a theory of mine, KJ, that there exists a minority of men, probably about a third, who really like women. I don't mean they like them in the heterosexual sense -- the vast majority of men ARE heterosexual and do like women in that way. I mean men who like women as people, as friends. Hence, these men, as a self-fulling prophesy, pursued for a lifetime the treasures of their hearts, tending to have deep, intense and fulfilling relationships with members of the opposite sex -- a celebration of life, which will never be forgotten.
I believe you and I both belong to this third of men and are alike in this respect. Having sensed this early on about you -- from your writings, your poetry and even the music you have chosen to highlight this theme -- I have followed your posts of this nature with great interest for a number of years now.
Since these past relationships and experiences were so important to men such as us, defining even who we are today, I believe those of us with this mindset have a tendency to live, to some extent, in the past, cleaving to those fond memories of women who we still love in our hearts.
I suppose the only real difference I see between you and I in this respect is that I never ended a relationship on a really bad note -- no accusations, no pleading, no anger -- just plenty of tears. For my lovers and I, breakup always involved pragmatic reasons, or reasons of necessity, involving us going back to other lives, or we just recognized that the relationship was over and that it was time to move on. We always did so tearfully and with sadness in our hearts. So, the relationships, the longing, the love, will always be there -- as business, forever unfinished.
~Manfred
Thank you, Manfred ... very nicely put, and I agree that most of my relationships do maintain the unfinished "business" that may be the sign of something deeper than friendship and thus something that perseveres through time.
DeleteIMportant topic which most of us can relate to, men as women. Somehow I imagine that you and Leonard Cohen have much in common.
ReplyDeleteYes, we are both Canadian ... ;o}
DeleteApart from that, not sure ...
we were all very special to someone or to many and that is to be respected in our minds and hearts
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly ... just takes me more words to say it ... ;o}
DeleteI truly do believe it is important to love, to be loved, and to fully understand the lessons learned along the way. It's not important to relive the details as they are in the past for a reason. I also believe that this time will be the last time, and for that I am ever so thankful.
ReplyDelete