Friday, August 26, 2011

T-2: How I Recovered From the Worst Break-Up of My Life

I'm not sure who turned their back first. Probably me. Sometimes, you just can't hear. Mostly, I couldn't feel.

Tonight, I ran a bunch of errands after work. I turned toward the mall and it hit me. The tears. An absolute flood of them. I parked at the next place on my list and let it happen. It wasn't just some, SNAFU of the day sob, but the kind of deep, cathartic weeping that comes seemingly from nowhere, but miraculously lifts something.

It needed lifting. I needed lifting.

When we talked, after so, so long -- it was with much more clarity than I've managed for years. I could finally express my gratitude. I said how much I appreciated the love that was so clearly given me, the intimacy I'd never known before.

I was given an opportunity to experience things most people do at half the age and that I was and I am thankful for that unexpected sweetness and innocence. I talked about how I hoped the person who was the vessel of that find the strength to be true to his breathtakingly beautiful heart, his faith and be the man he was raised and destined to be. That I hoped he'd come to understand how much more special that is than the dime-a-dozen jerk act that all those girls with severe daddy issues rewarded.

When I was accepted to Columbia in 2003, my dear friend John sent me a T-shirt with a Columbia logo surrounded by ivy. The back read, "It's lonely at the top." At the time, I took that to mean, because the numbers were sparse, that so few made it to such a pinnacle. Indeed, that is true.

But, after spending most of my 30s in the godless, amoral upper echelons of academentia (shout out to Mary Daly!), I'd come to understand that message in a very different way. It's lonely at the "top" because there are so few people you can trust, who are honest, who value and regularly employ moral principles of any sort and who learn they will be rewarded far more for a dearth of integrity.

I expressed my gratitude for those who were able to maintain their principles, in spite of being in environments that didn't value having values.

I wasn't raised in any formal tradition, we were secularly Christian at most. My parents always told me I could choose whatever I wanted. Having nothing to cleave from or to, I never did find a formal religion that resonated with me.

Yet, there had always been something in me, something surrounding me that guided me to do the right thing, that protected me, that gave me extraordinary gifts. But I had felt so disconnected from that, from my very self for so long.

Until last night, when I felt the light inside me again and the warmth embracing me. Getting my spirituality back, is about the best 40th birthday gift I could have asked for. God, whatever you are, wherever you are, I'm glad our break up is over. I missed you.

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