October - November 2001

Abandonment

Part of any experience of love involves loss of love. I remember because right now I am letting go of someone I love deeply, and the pain and sense of loss come in waves through my hours and weeks.

Some people are better than others at moving on. Some are outright terrible and cannot do it without firing a blast of pain and blame back in the direction of someone they once called a friend to cover the tracks they left running away.

We experienced difficulties during our relationship -- all people do -- and we shared one another's lives through hard times, but there were so many moments of joy, exchange and profound surrender that any struggles, to me, seem minor by compare, just something to move beyond and forgive. Love is worth it. I live with a personal quality of, once having allowed my heart to love, always loving; once a person has entered the sanctity of friendship, I remain their friend through whatever difficulty we may face. The only exception, and it's not easy to do, is when I experience outright betrayal, where my safety is somehow threatened. Then I move the peson to a safe distance, or close the door. I have included as betrayal being deceived, and though I am aware that this has happened in my current situation, I am having a hard time accepting the fact or the agenda behind it. And I am not able to ask questions. And she has, in fact, said that I deceived her. I do not accept this, because I know I spoke my truth when I was aware of it, and that I have consistently presented myself as who I really am. I kept my commitments to her. To say that I was deceptive feels like a cover story, I believe she knows this, and I hurt like all madness thinking of it.

Still, my heart wants to love this person. I seem to have no choice in the matter: I must surrender to the elemental force, the heart and passion of Scorpio, the undeniable chemistry of desire.

I had to say it out loud to myself today: I have been abandoned. To me, abandoned is what happens when a person I was previously very close to leaves me behind or cuts off communication without saying good-bye, without saying thank you, and without honestly saying how they feel. Abandoned is when somebody leaves and says fuck you walking away. Presumably, someone leaves because they are angry, hurt, jealous or untrusting, or because they just need to move on. But others leave because love hurts. I know that in such circumstances the truth may seem difficult to tell, or to hear, but this is when it counts the most, if we want to move on with clarity and not take our old pain into a new phase of life.

After untangling this person's contradictory statements, insults and reconstructions of history for about three months, I have come to understand that everything she said amounted to a pile of excuses for her own abandonment of me. When I said I needed closure, she responded, "I don't care if you have closure. I do."

I did not believe her then, and I don't believe her now, but it revealed something about our relationship. Not that my heart cares. My heart embraces and loves her and that is that.

She and I come from remarkably similar backgrounds. City kids who grew up in extremely tense, embattled households, with a history of abuse in both our families, and a long track record of being forsaken by both care givers and partners, we're both intense, passionate, complicated people. We both carry wounds, wounds of abandonment, and that means we both need healing, acceptance and self-acceptance. We will both find it, I am sure, sooner or later. But that does not help me now, in my wanting to share with her, to understand her better, to hear her voice and share my reality and food and love with her. As my Course in Miracles reminds me, When I am healed, I am not healed alone.

I have abandoned people in the past. It was always because I could not stand to say goodbye, or to acknowledge that being loved hurt. I did not know that I felt unworthy of love. I am now learning that I am. Over many years, I have learned that it's worth the effort to work to bring relationships to full consciousness and, if necessary, to closure. Closure, if it's meaningful, is an understanding of how both people feel, and a mutual agreement to let go. It takes work. It takes humility. Many people have many reasons for not doing so, and it hurts. But it's worth it because, among many other reasons, closure means we can let go in love and not in anger.

I hurt because I can feel the love that is between us. I can feel the sense of purpose and the unique potential for healing very similar wounds. I can feel the beauty of who we are together. And I feel the betrayal of being abandoned. And there is nothing I can do. I have no closure. Tonight, my heart is raging.

All I can say is, I will never forget the beauty of who you are. I accept you, even if that means accepting you if you can't or won't honor who we were to one another, or who we are as fellow humans, equal in our needs, in our pain, and in creation. And no matter how many scalding baths I take, nothing can replace the heat and fire of you. If you'e missing me tonight, I truly feel for you.