The Stories on Water

Once again I come upon the wall that is writing about my life where it intersects relationships with other people.

Without sharing too many details that are not mine alone to share – if my last relationship were a play, it would have taken place in two acts.

My therapist asked me yesterday morning if I felt like staying for the second act was worth it; do I wish I had gone home at intermission? I paused — I wondered if I was over-simplifying the answer.

Yes. Of course it was worth it.

Would I have saved myself some pain if I’d gathered up my belongings, left the theater, and gone gently into that good night?

Yes.

Is avoiding pain always the right answer?

Nope.

It’s so easy to look at endings – be they death, break-ups, or anything else that may cause us grief – and focus on the ache of what has been lost. Would you have rather not had the loss at all? Obviously. But while it’s a loss compared to yesterday, yesterday is a net gain from the day before.

And we all know I’m writing this at least partially to convince myself, right? To remind myself of what I know to be true.

I see it as the concentric circles of a raindrop landing on still water. The inner circle, the one most concerned with what is happening at the moment of emotional impact, is full of the pain of the collision of two objects trying to occupy the same space and failing.

That collision is a fact. It’s there. Ignoring it won’t make it cease to exist. But at the same time, focusing solely on the pain of that moment misses the big picture. If you look at the ripples from the center until they slowly dissipate, you can see that the drop is now part of the story of the water. Without that raindrop, without all the raindrops, there’d be nothing to fill us up.

Look at me.

Sitting with my goddamn feelings.

But wait. Am I sitting with them? Or am I intellectualizing as a clever way to avoid them?

Probably some from column A and some from column B. Intellectualizing is the big picture stuff — the whole lake. As long as I keep my focus on what I know to be true, I can ignore some of what I feel to be true.

Right now, what I feel is that griefy (can I trademark that?) mix of sadness, anger, and frustration.

I’ve worked very, very hard in the last few years to come to an understanding with myself and a general acceptance of my brain. This includes the acknowledgment that pain is still pain. Seeing the whole of the ripple does not lessen the impact.

So don’t take my intellectualizing as some sort of dulling of negative feelings. Don’t think I don’t sometimes fully wallow and lose site of every bit of what I’m writing right now. But that’s part of it. I think that’s how life works. Feeling our feelings, keeping ourselves afloat, letting our selves go under, occasionally giving in, sometimes giving up, and always moving forward whether we want to or not.

The trees were gold and thirsty, and they need a little rain. Nothing would ever happen if we always stayed the same. I should end this story here, now that all is well. But you know, and I know, that there’s always more to tell. I’m the singer so I choose the sweetness that I pour. I’d like to leave you wanting more. I’m the singer measuring the sweetness that I pour. We only need a little but we’re always wanting more. – The Nields