Third Parties

It wasn’t her.

That was the lesson. 

The obvious truth. 

But even once I was presented with the truth, in my apparent acceptance was a rejection. I mirrored her denial. I was drawn into that collusion with very little effort. Denial and naivety is where we reside. We climb into bed with a watered down reality that promises us an easy ride, but is never there when we wake up to the cold light of the truthful day.

I loved her. Being with her hurt. Being without her hurt. I was never good enough. She pushed me away, even as I pulled into the harbour and threw her the rope that would bring us together. The force of that current was too much. And yet I endured. Either that, or I was pig-headed. Stubborn in the certainty of my ignorance.

I loved her, but I was not capable of loving her. It was not her that I saw. She was a fiction of her own making. And also a fiction of my making. The lace fabrication that she was adorned with was intoxicating. The reality of her would have been far more dizzying. Perhaps I was not ready for that. Neither was she.

And so we danced with the lace veils, and I gloried in my false strength. Convincing myself that I would prevail. A knight armoured in stupidity, tilting at a stuffed dummy made in my own image.

That was another lesson. 

A lesson that I had to mull over and turn this way and that over another decade or more. The foe I fought was myself. Or rather my ego. That part of myself that talked a good game and made me feel as though I actually counted for something. Fact was, I had to put my ego in its rightful place and enthrone my self in its stead. But I was scared. Scared of my true nature. I hated my vulnerability, and I abused it in the false certainty that I could kill it and bury its body deep within me. We are all vulnerable and we are worthy of love, but somewhere along the way, we learn lies instead of lessons, and we hide our self-inflicted limp, grit our teeth and find someone else to blame. 

Blame is sheer idiocy.

They made me do it.

Blame is relinquishing our agency and the power that our agency conveys. We render ourselves even more vulnerable in our fear and loathing of our vulnerable nature. We do this and spiral around in the same old detrimental circles. We call that living. 

Language is as flawed as we are. It is clunky and lacks logic. It makes no sense until it is made to make sense. Much the same as we are in need of that treatment. Speaking our truth, and propelling it into the world with love, is the only way to make sense of ourselves and our place in this infinite and humbling universe. In the truth of our existence, we realise how small we are, and in that liberating revelation we become more than we could possibly imagine.

Unwittingly, I was journeying along this path to love, truth and enlightenment as I danced with the ghost of her dead father. I thought it was her leading me the merry dance, but she was even more captivated by him than I. 

She’d nursed him through the last days of his life. Their roles reversed. She was the parent now, as the cancer ate away his fatherhood along with his dignity. In this tragedy, she felt an acute state of abandonment. Constant thoughts of the Mother she could never know. Death having already lead that woman away from her when they were both far too young. Her sense of loss battered her and in the lulls of its violence, it whispered words of inadequacy. She could not mother her dear Dad. She did not know how. She had never been shown how to be. 

Of course, she did her best. She loved her Dad with all her heart and the universe guided her. It spoke its truth through her, and her Dad loved her right until his heart no longer mattered anymore.

The pain of their parting held her in a perpetual state of loss. She could not let him go. The fear of what lay beyond life without him was too noisy. It yapped and it lashed out until she gave into it and held it even tighter, making it struggle and bite all the more. 

The core of her fear was that of lack. Not the loss of her father, but what she would have left were she to let go and move on. She convinced herself that she would be nothing without him. Her worth was in him and that was all there was to it.

This was the lie that concealed her truth. Bricked it up in a secret room and imprisoned it.

The lie was a half-truth, for none of us are worth anything without love and her love for her Dad burned fiercely within her.

I caught a glimpse of her, despite her hidden nature, and that was what hooked me. Even as I clumsily fought myself, there was a deeper and truer quest. And I felt that pain that she carried with her always. I saw it in a smile that reached eyes that wanted to shed tears, but were never given the opportunity to do so. There were small clues, a trail of breadcrumbs that were tastes of a promise. The promise of her.

They say that you cannot fix another human being. Maybe not. But you can love and you can seek the truth that makes a life worthwhile. We all have a light. The trick is to open ourselves up and allow it to shine into the world. Illuminate the path and show the way. Both for ourselves and those we love.

She hurt me, but I understood why and in my understanding, the pain I experienced was shared. I took some of her hurt upon myself and I let it go for her. I was constant in my presence in her life and I smiled, and I loved and I held her so she felt safe and at peace. 

Gradually, everything fell into place. 

I thought I was her first.

And in a way, I was. 

Her Dad was the first man she ever loved and she needed to let him go in order for his light to take its rightful place in her life, and to allow her own light to shine. As our time together reached its predetermined end, I hoped that I had done enough. That I had done right by us both. Walking that line that we can never see, but that we know exists all the same. 

I prayed for her to go out into the world and show that indifferent and sometimes cruel world who she truly was. And in doing so, she would meet her one.

Never did I expect that I would witness that eventuality or anything that came close. Less so, as our relationship ran its course and subsequent encounters became increasingly awkward. Her feeling the need to punish me for a failure that did not exist. Another symbolic battle that was a stand in for the war of meaning that we are constantly engaged in as we swim with the tide of life.

Then, one day, six months after we had parted ways, she saw me on the late train home and made her way determinedly towards me. Mirroring the day our worlds came together. But this time, she was different. Almost lighter. Almost freed from a burden that was never hers to carry. She buzzed and wriggled with a knowledge she was keen and reluctant to impart. She felt the need, but did not have the way. And so we talked about the weather and anything and everything that was inconsequential as a warm up exercise in the potential of  truth telling.

Leaving the train, we walked slowly towards our respective homes. Our pace dwindling to a funeral march. 

“Can we…” her voice tapered off, but somehow I knew what she wanted.

I pointed at a nearby bench, seemingly abandoned on a grass verge. Its positioning insane in the context of daytime traffic. But here, in the moonlit night, it was perfect. A prop placed just so for the coming performance.

We sat and she composed herself, and in feeling that effort, I did likewise. Clearing the clutter of my dirty day from my mind. Promising myself that I would remain open and hear her out. That I would actively listen to what she was about to say. It would be some time before I made listening more of a habit. I’m still working on that. Fighting the urge to interject in ways that I believe are helpful, but can only be ego-driven noise. If what I have to say is important, it can wait. Truth endures. 

And there we sat in the calm of the night and she apologised to me. I listened and I smiled and she told me off for smiling, once she had done. I took her hand and squeezed it, telling her that I was glad. My gratitude encompassed her act of telling me off. That was a part of her and she was being true to herself, and this made the moment real.

She frowned at me. Trying not to understanding. Wanting to take it back.

“You’re ready,” I told her, squeezing her hand yet again.

“For what?” she asked.

“To love,” I told her.

She blustered at this and removed her hand from mine, attempting to swipe away at my words as though they were bothersome flies.

I grinned at her then and winked, “I was your first proper boyfriend.”

She baulked at this and could not prevent her automatic denial. A scene of casual and amusing denial that we had rehearsed and played out a number of times.

I held her in my gaze and she eventually capitulated. A moment passed between us. Two battle worn warriors reaching an easy and long overdue accord. She relaxed into her reality. Now her apology was heartfelt, but there was the poison of regret in it.

I took that regret and I strangled it at birth. I told her this was where we both belonged. That we were meant to cross paths and learn from each other. We had both given the other more than we realised. There was no loss here, and so there could be no regrets. 

Then I told her that I was certain that she would meet the man for her soon enough. That she was ready now. And I thanked her for our time together. A rare moment of closure that was a prelude to my prophesy coming to pass.