Try

Try by Pink

This video is simply amazing. The dancing is pure passion, physically demanding and powerfully cohesive. The song lyrics are real and intense. "Just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die. You've gotta get up and try."

I used to think no one understood me but him; now I just think no one does...again, profound sadness. An inability to be seen; an inability to connect on a level much deeper than the norm. And when you have so few of those instances in your life, how do you find the courage to "try, try, try" again?

Sometimes I cry, and I don't even know why. I find myself welling up with emotion, and then I try to determine the root, the context, the cause of such pain and tenderness. But really all I want to do is turn it off...something which I struggle extensively with.

Yet, at the heart of the matter, I simply want someone who can seriously love the laughs...but the tears even more. Why is that so incredibly difficult? When did we stop loving the innermost parts of human nature? When did we become less about real care and understanding and more about ease and predictability? Where did the passion go? And why did he stop loving the best and worst parts of me?

SCREAM!

Sometimes I just want to scream - not the kind where you bury your head in a pillow and let it out, rather the kind where you're in an open field and you let out a bloodcurdling, knock your socks off SCREAM! The problem is intrinsically in the infeasibility of such an action. You see, I live in a city, in the middle of a nice, polite neighborhood in the middle of the city to be exact. Screaming outside is completely out of the question, unless I want the neighbors, police, and local activist groups immediately on my doorstep.

Unfortunately, I have also toyed with the idea of screaming inside my apartment. Again, I fear that the neighbors will hear.

So, I am resigned to screaming in my head, and isn't that the worse kind?

Adventure #23: Seeking Spirituality

I decided to try something new, a new church to be exact. More or less, I've attended the same church for many years now, but as of late, I've had a tug on my heart. A tug to try something, well, new. And I loved it.

I felt "not only welcome, but celebrated," and what a wonderful feeling that was! It did not matter that I am 30+ and still single. It did not matter that I am on a faith journey of inquisition, reflection, and passion. It did not matter that at the end of it all, I just think we should love more, regardless of where or who that comes from.

And I felt...hopeful. A part of something - something real, something made for me. And after all, at the end of the day, don't we all just want to belong?

Love 'N Faith

I've recently realized that I suppose one could say I am on a faith, hope, and love journey. I know that the journey is supposed to be the best part, the memorable part, and yes, I suppose that's true. (A lot of supposin' going on there, I know.) After all, we LIVE in the in-between...the dash between your date of birth and your date of death. But I liked the bit before, before the end, before the now. I liked the bit where my life had a love that was true, a love that was real.

My Caribbean boyfriend acknowledged that perhaps I fall in love too easily, but as I've noted previously, I don't want to change. My passion, my pain, and aren't they often the same, is what defines me...for better or for worse.

One of my all-time favorite movies is City of Angels, because "some things are true whether you believe 'em or not." I still feel the same about him. "I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One." What is the truth? Was it the beginning, the in-between, or the end? Will I ever really know? Am I supposed to know?

So sometimes I cry. "Maybe emotion becomes so intense your body just can't contain it. Your mind and your feelings become too powerful, and your body weeps." I cry because I still have faith in my love. In my love for him and with him. And isn't that the most pathetic thing you've ever heard? But without my love for him, I don't feel, well, real in the in-between.

Pooh and Piglet

When I think of the type of relationship I want, nothing sums it up better than the relationship between Pooh and Piglet. "I just wanted to be sure of you."

It may seem so easy to you to be able to let go of someone you don't see often, you don't talk to often, you don't have a long history with. But, it's not about the distance; it's about the depth. "Some people care too much. I think it's called love."

There was immense comfort in knowing someone under the same moon was thinking of me. "I wonder what Piglet is doing. I wish I were there to be doing it, too."

My dreams, both waking and not, were often of him. "I think we dream so we don't have to be apart for so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time."

I wanted to be in his life forever, and he in mine. "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."

"We'll be friends forever, won't we, Pooh?" asked Piglet.
"Even longer," Pooh answered.

But "I used to believe in forever, but forever's too good to be true." Now, I feel that he doesn't want to be in my heart, and that hurts more than I could have ever imagined. I wanted him to love the tears as much as the laughs. "The things that make me different are the things that make me." And I thought he did...

Yes, I wish things had been different in the end. I wish he had been more compassionate, more understanding, more loving, but who is to say he wasn't hurting as much, if not more, than I? And will I ever truly know? "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

Piglet once asked Pooh, "How do you spell love?" Pooh responded, "You don't spell it...you feel it."

"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together...there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart...I'll always be with you." He said I am these things without having known him, but his love for me made them manifest.

I still long for one day, despite him telling me it's time to move on, because "Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day." And is that not the Caribbean way, anyhow?

Answers

The Answers

I loved a man in a far away land with more than I knew I had...but everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes I wish change weren't so inevitable...but he and my Caribbean island of bliss will live in my heart and soul forever. But how do you let go when a piece of your soul is gone?

For over a year, I have loved this man with an intensity unmatched by many. He has been my rock, my guide, my soulmate. He understands me in a way no one ever has, yet...

Many people in my life would say, "I told you so." But at the end of my days, I will be glad that at least  I was never consumed by "what might have been." Though the immediate feeling is one of intense sorrow, I will one day be intimately and sincerely grateful for  the entire experience.

I never thought he and I would have a real relationship, but I liked the dream. I liked knowing someone in the world, no matter how far away, was thinking of me and loving me. I never expected us to not "move on," but I suppose I wanted a week to pretend, to pretend that our lives are parallel, that our cultures aren't vastly different, that our worlds are indeed similar.

But something happened along the way. Expectations were not met, and feelings were deeply hurt. We lost our way, completely. It's complicated, yet ironically simple: we cannot be together.

So, how do you find a new direction when your compass fails? For that is what my Caribbean boyfriend has been for me. I am devastated in the loss of the love of a lifetime, but relish the fact that I had it at all. And in the end, before he walks out the door, I ask if he loved me. And he says he does. Present tense, not past tense.

I am grounded in the fact that I get to choose whom I love, and no one or nothing else can take that away from me. And I am filled with the knowledge that the dream, the fairy tale, was real. It's just that The End of the story, as with all stories, has finally come.

p.s. As for Superman, I haven't thought of him once, and that was hope #1 for this trip.

How Can I Help You Say Goodbye by Patty Loveless