Coming Around Again

November has snuck its way into the landscape and Summer is a memory that still hurts in the telling. Deathly Winter stalks the unsuspecting days, just a little further along the path of life, and the idea of rebirth is just that. An abstraction that does not yet belong in the world.

There is a chill in the air, but it is not yet cold. The old church is draughty and the gutless heating pipes fight a losing battle against the belligerent rock foundations. The modern world is of no interest to this ancient place. The old stone bones are about the values and truths that endure. Uncomfortable truths that the whispering cold reminds us of.

And yet I am hot and clammy. I feel the cold jostling me, but I am my own weather system right now. I am a one-man storm, and the storm sets me apart even as I smile at the people filing in. Even as I watch as those people are forced to shuffle to their seats by the narrow spacing of the pews. I have watched this odd shuffling dance any number of times, but now I see it anew and it holds more significance to me. Another lesson the church bestows. Ritual and habit having to be observed in order for each and every parishioner to listen carefully and accept the truth into their receptive hearts and minds. They need as much of it as is possible as their return to their comfortable, modern lives and the conflicting habits and rituals that await them there, will throw them back upside down and most of what truly matters will spill out of them, and they will slot straight back into the sinning groove.

Again and again I smile and nod. I feel awkward and my awkwardness is heightened by the rivulets of sweat on my forehead and running down my back. I shrug my shoulders, but this only makes it worse. My shirt sticking to my damp skin and inviting a cold draft in. Not wanting to draw attention to my fetid state I leave my forehead be. Soon enough, it gets too much and I’m dabbing my forehead with my hanky.

“Not long now,” says the vicar.

I repeat the nod and smile, but I hate him for his attempt at reassurance. I know his words to be kind, but now I am focused upon the time. I know it will drag and in that drawn out expanse of time I will contemplate everything to come, and all that has been, in a frenzy of panic and doubt.

What if she does not come?

“You’re alright, son.” This is my best man and my best mate. He places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. He’s not a demonstrative man. Neither of us are. But he seems to know this is called for. It’s as though he’s read my mind, and I have no doubt he has. We’ve been friends for so long we get each other. Sometimes better than ourselves.

“Thanks mate,” we exchange a look that is worth a thousand words. He’s been there for me no matter what. We can say anything to each other and know we will get a fair hearing. Neither of us are perfect and that’s where we’re most comfortable. It’s still a relief to be reminded that it isn’t just me. There’s someone else who struggles to find a place in this strange world. Someone who gets annoyed and frustrated at how broken everything is, and then turns that around on themselves, terrified that we’re the ones who are broken. After all, everyone else seems to be getting along just fine. We don’t want to be like everyone else though and so we’re trapped in a state that grates away at us. Fighting the good fight, until we retire to our corner and go through the plan we have for the next round with the one friendly ear we’ve found in this world. 

Even my best friend’s presence isn’t of much help to me here and now. The church is a rarefied environment. I cannot bring symbols of my own faith here. The graven images that surround me are washed clean of any meaning or use. I am alone in this moment. Alone with my thoughts and my memories.

Standing before the congregation, I judge myself and find a great deal of lack. I am having an existential crisis. 

What am I doing here?

I try this thought on for size, and it cuts deep. I loathe my arrogance and blind faith in my ability to make something work. Is it really about grinding out a result? I feel the weight of another mistake upon my shoulders. That weight is the only thing keeping me here.

I call myself a loser and I lie to myself in order to feel a pain that might just make the labouring seconds chivvy along. I tell myself that I should have thought all of this through before now. That it’s too late in the day to be having second thoughts now.

Later, I’ll have a word with myself. Second thoughts typically arrive at the last second. That is their very nature. I cannot go against nature, not even in the House of God. I try to remember the good times, but in order to get to the best examples, I have to traverse a dark swamp of painful memories. I haven’t allowed those dark times to define me, but they are there and a part of me all the same.

By rights I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t. I’ve been here before. Not this exact place, but in the same situation, doing the same thing. The de ja vu of this moment pains me and I fancy there is shame within that pain. There was a time when The Church would not allow this. A promise is a promise and once broken there is no going back. The lowest and grimmest level of hell is reserved for the betrayer. Is there a worse betrayal than going against vows made in the sight of God and witnessed by all those you love? Maybe there is, but that’s a theoretical discussion to be had in hell. A willy-waving exercise to see who is the most despicable amongst us.

And I am here because of a betrayal far worse than any I have ever perpetrated. Seven years on and I am itchy with sweat. Burning with the heat of my doubt and fear. I can dispel my self-doubt and I can put to one side my doubt of her. But it’s life that I doubt. This world of ours. I have seen evil and I know how strong and persuasive it can be. The devil takes the souls of the living and his Faustian bargain stinks of sulphurous shit. That poison is rubbed into self-inflicted wounds, and in the confusion of madness whole houses fall and darkness reigns.

We are weak and we are selfish. Our wounds are our treasure and we lash out at those we love as we slavishly attend to those wounds. If we are lucky, we catch sight of those who would be our salvation, we latch onto the light we have glimpsed, and we never take our eyes from it. Those we love are the lighthouses in the storms of our lives. They are where we belong.

I wonder at the blasphemy of my considering weak flesh and blood my salvation, but here in this Home of God surrounded by my church, I know it not to be a blasphemy nor a contradiction. The light we see is the light of love, and that love is divine. God is love and love is God. We are one tiny part of a greater whole and in that belonging, we are everything. 

As I stand here and prepare to make a leap of faith, I wonder at our capacity to bear pain. That capacity seems matched by our ability to bear love. We can fill ourselves and our lives with one, or the other. One is a passive act. A giving up of everything including our very self. The other is an act of will. To live and take responsibility for our lives and everything our living touches. To own the consequences. To serve those we love. To give.

To give.

To forgive.

Life rewards us for that which we give it. The wonderful thing about that is we never know what we’re getting. We have no say in that. Which is just as well, we’re no good at establishing what we want, let alone what we need. 

I await her and consider my leap of faith. I have a long standing theory that has since become a belief. The One is not that person you see across a crowded room and fall in lust with. The One becomes. They are transformed in the act of a love that will outlast us all. You have to want it and you have to live it. Times will sometimes be hard, but those times are when you both build a strong bond of love. Two people who dream together and love together will be together in the best of ways and in that oneness their lives will be as rich as can be. Memories. Connection. Bathing in the light. Being warmed by it. Being filled by it.

Shaking with the responsibility of what I am embarking upon I gaze down the impossibly long aisle and await my fate. The aisle is my chosen path. My rechosen path. We parted seven years ago and now we are rejoining. We are the long odds. And we are both stubborn enough to make those odds work.

Divorced and now remarrying. Our lives were torn apart by evil and we were left with less than nothing in the aftermath of that savage and callous attack. This was a storm that threatened never to end, and in the midst of it, we lost our grip and sank into a darkness without end.

I never dared hope that she would come and find me once she was washed upon a far off shore. Too much water under a bridge that burnt for a thousand days and nights, but never provided a light to see by. Our everything was crushed under the weight of a betrayal that consumed all it touched. 

I held firm and never lost sight of what counted. I fought for what was right and in so doing I found my way to calmer waters and I kept what was mine. All the memories. The friendships and connections that called to me and brought me to safe harbour. I never stopped living and my life contained a kernel of hope as I mended my broken hull and dared to venture forth again.

Did I wait for her?

I remained true to myself. I held on to who I was and what I was about. My light shone and I knew that she would see it, if she ever dared look up in a courageous attempt to climb out of a trap made for her by an embittered and twisted soul.

We are all of us blinded by pain as we walk the path of life. And in that pain, we seek to attribute blame for the hurt we experience. Seldom do we blame the true perpetrator of our fall. And even if we do, it is a foolish endeavour. Blame is hate’s lie and it brings the angry darkness and that darkness is forever hungry.

I forgave.

Forgiveness was as much a gift for myself, and in my forgiveness was the hope of better days. Better days for us all. I wished her well and I hoped that she would be restored to herself. All I wanted was for her to be herself again. I had seen her truth and I had shared it. There was a happiness in our being real together. A promise of so much more to come. We had only just begun. A shared path stretched out before us, with the hint of an eternity beyond that.

Love is all things. Love is eternal. When paths diverge, love remains. We are stupid in our hateful lies if we ever paint an end to love. In our memories is the love we shared and those memories endure. Each and every one of those who have loved us and we have loved, they are a part of us. We worry too much about who we are and who we are meant to be when love takes care of that for us. We only make sense when we are a part of something bigger than us.

I look around the church and I see that now, and a joyful peace replaces all my worries. Now my smile contains a light that will not be denied, and several of my family and friends see this and return that radiant glow. They have been with me through thick and thin. Of course they have! What was the alternative? Even in my darkest days, as I lay in an empty bed in an empty house that had once been a home, I was never alone. I felt the love from all these people and I remembered my place in their world and the obligation it carried. And so I kept going.

I kept going and I hoped that she would too. I hoped that she would someday see me and remember herself. I kept the faith. I was me and in being me, being real, I was enough. 

We agreed to meet each other after the jagged hailstones of the divorce abated. A coffee in a neutral place to talk and see what our newfound status afforded us. What it all meant. We are after all, seekers of truth. That is the point to our lives.

That meeting never happened. I never once thought that it would. She remained wounded and now she had a new receptacle for her blame. And in blaming she bent the narrative to suit her; I had divorced her. She needed to create that false proof of abandonment in an attempt to dull her pain. 

I was the love of her life, and in her pain, she transformed me into her scapegoat and in leaving me, she told herself that it was me who had betrayed her. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but we all create our own reality and hers sat dangling over the abyss.

There were those who believed her though. They saw her pain and related to it. The narrative was simple. She was hurt. Why would she lie? Where was I in her darkest hour?

I was here.

I was always here for her.

In the place which was once our home.

I never once left the space I’d occupied. I remained in the light. Knew well enough that you cannot ever follow someone into their own personal darkness. The darkness of isolation where love cannot reside.

Moving with the flow of life, I got busy living. I forced one foot in front of the other and waded through the treacle of my despondency. The weight of the world threatened to collapse me, but I couldn’t give in. I couldn’t give up. I carried that weight until I was truly back in the world. I kept going and I found a way to live well and relinquish the pain of my rejection. I sought the love of those around me and found it in abundance. And I found more still. People reaching out to me in love to make sure I was OK. We all need that. To ensure those around us are alright. Those acts of kindness make the world make sense. Kindness is order in a world that would mortally wound us if we strayed too far from our herd.

The next chapter approaches, and I lose myself in my newfound peace. I am where I need to be. And in that joyous state, I remember where it all began again. A chance encounter on a high street miles from anywhere. The shocked confusion of seeing each other and an insane urge to run away. From what, I did not know. 

“Fancy that drink now?” I asked her.

“Why not?” she replied.

I pointed to the coffee shop across the street.

She smiled, “I’d rather have a G&T,” she said nodding towards the pub beside us.

“Dutch courage?” I said returning the smile.

She shook her head, and once we had our drinks, she raised her glass and looking me in the eye said, “more a celebration.”

That was when I knew. And now as the doors to this old and draughty church open, I shiver with the chill of anticipation, and as I see her appear, I cannot hold back my tears. I don’t even try. My best mate wraps his arms around me and hugging me, he says “all’s well…”

All’s well that ends well. 

It ended, and now there is a new beginning. 

They say that love is better second time around. I dunno about that. I don’t know how that accords with love’s eternal nature. What I do know is that she lost her way and went through hell. But now she’s here and we have a second chance. Another chance to walk the path of life together. 

I take her hand as she arrives at my side and I squeeze it. I will never let her go, and I know she will never let me go again. She is here now and she is here for me and there is nothing else. Only our love and our future.

What else could I ever want?