The Life Span of Adoring a Man

I once fell madly in love.

After the relationship was over, I grappled with forgetting its feelings altogether, especially those of loving a man regardless of the relationship ending. During my heartbreak, I relished being in hate, resentment, rage, bitterness, and shock, yet my heart always palpitated with the subtle beat of adoration.

 

Was I weak and stupid for not being able to erase all of love’s leftover feelings? They say all you need is love, as if its form never changes, as if it lives on as a palpitating extravaganza of rainbows and Eros. No one delves into the underpinnings of its afterlife or its demand you grant its little girl/boy wishes to live on in your psychic landscape--even though you intend to dig for it a hole, bury it in unfathomable depths, and place on it a tombstone.

  

My questions about how to come to terms with my feelings for a man I once adored--and continued to do so long after our relationship ended--persisted, and I was years away from an answer even though at one time my heart knew it all:  how to respond to his underlying concerns with sharp observations, tap into his sadness with listening, alleviate his anxieties with quotes, and intuit and share in his happiness.


I had had several relationships but in my first ever affair of the heart, I was happily and brilliantly operating on instincts, except that in its aftermath all I did was think; hence, answers were never forthcoming.  Of course, it felt right, just, and easy when feelings were equally exchanged--kiss for kiss, longing for longing, desire for desire. Now, operating in the nederland of a long-lost affair was my new hell.

I remember learning to feel my emotions, for the first time ever, after my brutal divorce. (I survived two angry, violent parents by priding myself on never shedding a tear or sharing my pain with anyone.)  At the end of my marriage, and because I process and learn visually, I related my feelings and their reactions to images: Sadness, a shallow, lifeless pond in the middle of nowhere;  Rage, the throbbing tip of a welder's burning torch; Bitterness, the soul’s lining worn away by acidic bubbles of resentments;  Wailing, the deep gurgling of primal life’s first signs; Revenge, landing punch after punch in a violent boxing match; and Forgiveness, a pilgrimage with its end-journey to an ancient, holy cathedral nowhere in sight.  

Eventually, I healed from my divorce, started dating, and was no longer afraid of feelings, yet I didn’t know how to put an image or understanding to the abrupt disappearance of soulful love that lasted only two years.

This week, I let it go—the tight grip of refusing love to continue beating in my heart regardless of the status of my relationship.  “I adore him,” I said out loud and meant it. “And this whether it be for another week, month, year, or eternity.” "This whether I fall in love with another man.  "This whether he has fallen in love with another woman."

My epiphany of release came slowly, preceded by signs, especially after watching “Liv & Ingmar,"  in which Liv Ullmann shared her relationship history and "painful connection” with Ingmar Bergman—a man she adored years after he left her and years after his death--and her lifetime lesson of learning to “let it go.”

To my surprise, accepting there might never be an expiration date for my love of a man I had not seen in years--and might never see again-- didn’t cause a run on the establishment of my feelings, a desire to call him to reclaim lost time, or a need to beg for a reunion or rekindling.  

For the first time in years, I had peace about love, and it felt like a quiet joyful wholeness in the region of my heart.
Read My Exciting Memoir, "The Continent of Ruby," available at: http://www.amazon.com (Because sometimes love, hate, living and dying all feel the same)