Way Too Late Pt 3

[Zues126]

Hey 13, haven't read much about your sitch, just skimmed through the last few posts. I've seen your name around a bit, I like that you're active.

So, here's the deal. There are some things that are pretty sick and twisted in the world. But at the end of the day, they only stink if you cling to the idea that it should work some other way, that it should be some other way.

In the movies there was a scene that played out a number of times, where some well off gangster like guy has some high maintenance woman. Then, when he loses his lifestyle, she's out of there. I think this plays out in the Bronx Tale, Blow, Casino, and many others like it. In one she's like taunting him in jail about how he'll never see his daughter and how she's screwing some other guy. In another she just leaves him high and dry. I don't know why this bothers me so much. Maybe it's because loyalty is so important to me. Maybe it's fear of abandonment. But something about identifying with this character who's serving a jail sentence for doing the things that provided for this woman who now cuts bait, it is really disturbing to me. Same as a woman who leaves her man that is serving his country and going through hell. And stuff like this. I like the lyrics from "constant sorrow" where he says "You can bury me in some deep valley for many years where I may lay, then you can learn to love another while I am sleeping in my grave".

But while those are movies, they tell those stories because it speaks to the truth, which is these things happen. It's shocking. It's gross. It's more painful than anything in the world. But they happen. For better or worse, this is what we humans choose to do to each other.

For us it is the ultimate abandonment and betrayal. For the WAS they feel we are horrible people that are destroying their only chances of happiness or their very existence. I won't defend the WAS action because I happen to think it's about as horrible as murder, but I understand that in their mind it is self defense.

But really, the reason this hurt me so much is because of my expectations. I expected a love that would transcend our humanity. I expected a permanence in an impermanent world. I expected that if I craved for something deeply enough, the world would provide it for me. That's just not how it works.

I've learned that the world is uncaring about my desires, needs, and expectations. That doesn't mean it's cruel. It's just not benign. It's just rather neutral. There are great things happening all around. We get many of our needs met, food, shelter, some stints of companionship, our ability to serve our community. And some needs aren't always met, not to the extent that our heart craves. And if it isn't loss of our marriages, it's sickness, poverty, mental deterioration, and finally death parts us all.

I guess my point is that if you view your life as being "happy" if your M worked out, and forever crippled if it doesn't, then you might feel you have lost your shot at fulfillment and that it's her fault, because it was her choice. A cynical but maybe more accurate model would be that no one can ever be happy or fulfilled in this world. While that sounds sad, the good news is that you didn't miss the opportunity to be fulfilled, it just never existed. For me it's easier to accept the fact that pain is inevitable, rather than that it was inflicted on me unfairly or unjustly.

Mostly a ramble tonight, not sure if I'm even coherent. But I guess I feel like life is disillusionment, suffering, and loss, then we die. If we can just kind of make peace with that, laugh at how painful it can be, and rejoice in the fact that death is going to save us from this not too far down the road...then in the middle of the pain, there are so many things to enjoy, to appreciate, to celebrate. Yes, I have pangs of loss and unfulfilled desires and loneliness and regret, but most of the time I'm too busy using the gifts that God has given me, connecting with my children, making a difference to those I work for, or just walking around a lake and marveling at what is all around.

Take care 13...