Treasure It All
A reflection in the wake of heartbreak
As you can tell, it is just barely not Thursday. I’ve been oscillating about whether to share this piece or not. I’m torn still.
While I was in Guatemala, I sat with an Oracle and she said that my heartbreak would be the doorway through which I would create a livelihood for myself. I wasn’t sure what she meant. I’m still not.
I hesitate to be so vulnerable, and yet, am longing for the capacity to share myself honestly with the world, with you.
And so, as a practice of self love, of truth telling, I will endeavor to share what is real for me.
And this is real.
So, I hope that you read it with care, with love, and with reverence for the plenty that is our capacity to feel, to lose, and finally to heal. Breathe in the words I tell like a story around a growing flame on a dark night with a sky full of stars. Let them cascade over your soul, and do not think too hard. These words are not for the mind. Let thoughts be still, and turn toward the soul of Life. Learn to be in that sacred quiet where meaning transcends the merely lived, and becomes the living itself.
Here’s to love, that holy sacrament, which washes our lives of fear and leaves us reveling in the richness of our eternal flame.
Enjoy,
Faolan.
The first time I saw her, she was wearing a Japanese style green dress. She sat at the front of class. I remember her being well-spoken, articulate, and intelligent. Her hair was beautiful. I fell in love with her inner world when she sent me her stories.
But eventually, life has to go on. Things have to change. And the past has to be the past.
“Fuck.”
And the hardest part is that the letting go actually feels good, once I let it happen. It’s a pain until it’s done, but then life expands again, and there’s space for someone else, for another love that’s healthier, more fulfilling, easier, and even more loving. It’s hard to believe, I know. Trust me. I know.
But what if, just for a second, you could imagine that love. Imagine the easier, more natural love; the one that comes from the delightful art of looking for what’s already here, instead of what could be out there.
The only problem is that you first have to master the art of appreciating what’s already here. When she arrives, you must know already how to love what’s here more than whatever could possibly be out there. It’s really just a decision; a choice. There’s nothing more simple in the whole world. Just choose. Be here; not then, not there… Here. Now.
And then the whole world can breathe a little easier, and her smile can be a blessing in your life, like an old stone in that box in that drawer, which I found while traveling to a world away, in a past life some decade ago; a sweet reminder of what life can offer.
And yet, the quiet is piercing. The silence of aloneness; electrical sounds and the hum of distant engines replacing the laughter, and the slippery sliding of her silk dress.
Replacing the constant tension and resentment, the anger and hurt.
Staying up too late alone replacing staying up too late together.
Was it worth it to leave her?
Does it matter anymore?
What’s the lesson here?
I’m alone again.
I wanted this.
And now I have it.
Treasure the lows, but don’t cling to them. Be reluctant to rely on her, but love her reliability. Drink in the beauty of love, but don’t let it saturate your life with the brilliance of unmet fantasy.
Turkey vultures circle over a crater. I lie in the middle staring at the sun. I’m caked in a bitter denial; a veneer of vicious recalcitrance.
To fossilize or to crack?
A slow turning of a world waits, and continues, while I return again and again, layer by layer to this choice. Will I make it? Will I ever fucking make it?
The crowd stares down, feeling that terrible awkwardness where you watch the character lose their sanity piece by piece, committed to going awry, so they can explain their humanness in whole to a voraciously normal watcher.
I feel watched by my own consciousness.
But not in the delightful way, where the intentional desire for presence lifts above the cloud of daily doldrum for that split moment of eternal bliss. No, not that.
This is a watching, a waiting, a wondering… “Will he ever pull himself together? Why is he still crying about her? She doesn’t care about him. She’s not ever here. Will he ever get a life? Will he ever really be able to take care of himself? What a little baby.”
The trance breaks. A wave lands on the shimmering cliffs of a Baltic sea. Her loving tenor floats on the wind. The drying linens wave in the afternoon wind, and catch the salty sun. A sailboat passes. Laughter plays from the lips of her children, which are also mine.
A life.
There will be life after death. There is life after death.
But, to reach it, you must let yourself die.
I must let myself die.
And maybe.
Just maybe…
That’s not so bad.
Because the music still plays, and paint still dries on canvas. Friends still laugh, and the sounds of laughter still play on our hearts like the ringing of angel’s bells. Life still happens, and only I must die. Only part of my soul must throw itself from the cliffs of eternal surrender, to be washed and released into the sea. Only part.
As I die, Life breathes more fully, and I live more alively.
Why isn’t that a word? It should be.
Treasure the love, but do not let it die. Give the gift of trust, and do not let it die. Create the level of safety your own heart would die for, and let it live. Give it all. Trust forever. Treasure everything. Life isn’t an endless fairytale. Life is a one player game, and it ends like all the others.
There is no winning or losing in the game of life. There is no denial or truth.
The game plays on without our choosing, without our merely human will, or consent. We are simply the players in a game that plays forward, never leaving us behind, for it is completely impossible to be left. There is nowhere to be left. There is no place that is not here. There is no time that is not now. And so, the game always continues. Eternal.
All we can do is linger in the limerence until it no longer lasts. Eventually, it will play out. Eventually, all it can do is merely mingle in our tingling time-knowing, awe-flowing experience of that ordinary bliss, which lands in the lake of our souls like the swans, which float over all those London waters. Bliss blossoms from the soil of our torrid love affair.
Release control. Release control. Release… Big sigh… Control.
A shadow is cast on the wall from the kitchen, and the tender light of her fades into the driving rain, which she loved.
Where would the love go, if it could speak? What would her heart feel, if it hadn’t broken? And, how long could we have danced, if our lives had stayed locked in that recalcitrant embrace?
Questions with no answers. Lovers, no longer friends. Memories with no tellers. Stories with no ends.
Treasure yourself forever, for you’re the only… Lose yourself together, for there is no other… Trellises paint the driveway. Daisies blooming true. Carefully, cut her hair. She has a dream to live her life unfettered. I see my daughter in her. And suddenly there's nothing I wouldn’t do To make her feel that she is loved, That she is treasured beyond belief, That her life is sacred, That her soul is not her body, But, that her body matters too. I want to tell her that I realized That she’s not a living object. But of course, she already knows. The boy just died. I felt him go.
A daughter… Wow…
“Of course, cut your hair.
Can I help you, or would you like to do it yourself?”
I’m sorry. You are your own woman. A daughter to yourself, you trailed a gown of flowers, in the soiled Earth.
Tread lightly on this desert hill.
A birth.
A tear-stained shirt in the mirror. A small taste of tomorrow.
The rewards for a warrior's art.
And I stand, fletched into the wind; an arrow in flight, struck soundly into life.
Treasure it all. Because there will never again be another now. Every moment will drift into the sands of always, and return to the flow of life.
Treasure it all, because that friend who loves you does it from their very own beating heart.
Treasure it all, because love, however painful, is the blood that pumps through our hollow hearts.
Treasure it all, because life is our only salvation.
There is no other part to play.
No one can live life for you. No one will tell you how.
Trust your highest virtue.
Time will always tell.
Trust in all that’s holy.
And draw your navel close to Hell.
Transcend the living boundaries. Drip yourself in melting wax. Tease the tips of follicles. Try the delving dance. Sip ambrosia from the fountain. Mirror the depths of Soul. Life force bounds around us. Lap some from the rain-drenched dell.
Burn your soul. Surrender.
Drink from the gates of Hell.
For all paths lead to Heaven.
When The Friend does know you well.
Inch by inch, and onward. Her story’s hers to tell.
But, what makes a life worth living is the laughters, not the Hell.
It’s all worth feeling, but live for the lighter words. Reconcile the longing to recover with the life that is already here. Bring laughter from the lighter lips. Bring shadows out to bear. Live always in the flowing folds of laundry, drawn warm from her loving arms.
Last night, I remembered when I was a child, and I used to huddle by the heater’s vents, tender little body, cradled in the warmth of life. I sat beneath the drawer. I was a creature still. Drawn by simple satisfaction.
Treasuring… it all.
May your journey be full of love, and may you always remember to treasure the life in front of your eyes, which is the life you’re living.
Faolan