You are blindfolded, the game is on the line. Everyone else sees what you are depending on instinct to find.
You get turned in circles just to make it a bit more interesting. Walking, stumbling blindly toward your target with your heart in your hand, seeking to make the connection.
Take your shot, affix your heart! Take off the blindfold and look with your natural sight. Did you hit the mark exactly, probably not. But even if your heart is ANYWHERE within the vicinity of your target, even on the edge of the edge, its ok. Right??? Did I win???
When I graduated High School, the song chosen for us to sing at our commencement was 'In My Life' by the Beatles. Though I liked the Beatles' music, that was not a song I really knew or even understood. I would have chosen something more like " Its So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday", from the movie 'Cooley High'. I was looking at the finality of my youth and the collection of memories and hijinks that seemed to be over, versus anticipating the next steps that would take me towards the promise of the future that lay before me.
But since I was more concerned with the graduation party schedules than protesting the choice of the graduation song, I conceded, learned the words, and obediently sang it at the appointed time.
Lately I find myself in a very nostalgic mood, thanks to Face Book reconnection's, deaths of iconic figures, holidays, and simply growing older.
I recently heard 'In My Life' on the radio and the light bulb went off!! OMG, I get it!!! Its about the connections! The people we encounter, the loves we make, keep, and even the ones we lose. Its about looking at the big picture and appreciating every part of it, good, bad, and ugly.
It got me thinking about love. In all the forms and flavors that I have experienced in my short, but long life.
Obviously, there are the loves that were easy to define; the love of family, friends, objects, places.
But the love that 'got me' was the short step that I never saw, the ones I always tripped and skinned my knees upon; the 'condition of the heart' loves. The crushes, infatuations, undying devotion, and gut-wrenching loves. The ones I lived for. The ones I died for.
I don't think it is ever right to tell a young person that they are in 'puppy love' or that 'young love is not real love', or that 'crushes don't count'.
I remember being told these things when I was in the midst of some life-altering and emotional chapter of my youth, and it confused me to no end.
I was FEELING and EXPERIENCING something powerful here, folks!!! Just because I was 10 should not make it any less REAL!!! And if what I was feeling was not the real thing, then God help me, how will I ever be able to withstand the intensity of love when it is 'REAL', when the puppy-love-lite version is kicking my tender, naive little butt!!!
From Elementary School, through High School, through my early adult years, and even now, I have learned that ALL loves, no matter how they started, how long they burned, or how they ended, were not only VERY REAL, but they were all VERY NECESSARY.
Every sigh, every hope, every embrace, every missed call and mistake, every kiss, and tear, was proof that I am ALIVE! I may not win, but dammit, I am in the game!!!
I became textures and colors that I didn't have before, as a result of each love. Some loves made my jagged edges smooth. Some rendered me with shards of pain and brittle memories that exist to this day. Reds of passion, cool lapis lazuli tinted times of calmness and content. Dazzling blue-white flashes of clarity, and even the purple-black, heavy velvet curtains of despair and self doubt. I became a more beautiful and intricate creation with each heart beat and heart break.
Now, as I watch my daughter grow, I know that I will have to be there for her for what is coming. She will break hearts, and have hers broken. She will dance around the house as if she is suspended weightless in air. She will hurt as if there is nothing bigger or more profound that the pain in her heart. However, I hope that I do and say the right things to let her know it is all worth it, and that she has the strength to keep going and not let any one love keep her from an entire life of love/loves/loving. I straddle the fence foolishly wishing I could spare her any hurt, and knowing that a life without love is a life less lived. So, I pray for her and myself, and little by little release her to life and the love lessons that will be.
Like me, all the loves of my life are real and relevant in all their forms and phases.
The past ones, the present ones, and the future ones. The beautiful ones, the foolish ones, the ones I planned, manipulated, and contrived, and the ones that came from left field, or out of nowhere and knocked me senseless.
In my life, I've loved them all...
No comments:
Post a Comment