Epiphany...I LOVE myself for ONCE loving you...

I once wrote about the pain of having been in love with someone and having that feeling of love degenerating into a feeling of self hate (catch it here). Its amazing what a simple read of a few paragraphs can do to completely turn oneself around. I’m laying across Terence’s bed in Harlem, reading the April issue of ‘O Magazine’- (I know, very homo! LOL) I’m reading the article “Love With A Twist”, about a couple’s teetering on the brink of marital disaster due to his inability to stop drinking (because he’s an alcoholic), and her refusal to do so (because she enjoys it so).

After taking us through the highs and lows of their relationship, Natalie (the author) gets us to the climax of the story: they start separate marriage counseling sessions. As these sessions go on, one day (after a broken light bulb fixture leads to the argument that prefaces “the make-up discussion”), her husband Hank asks Natalie what happened in her session. She says to him “I told her that this is so hard, and it’s making me miserable and half the time I hate you. So she asked me if I wanted to leave, and I said no. No matter how awful it is, I’m going to stay forever”. The climax to the story comes when Hank gives her a look and says ‘That’s what I’ve been telling her too”, after which they stare at each other and both involuntarily start to evoke a freeing, “one-of-those-changing-moments-in-a-relationship” laughs- which makes them both realize that that one guffaw carried with it the realization that they WANTED to still remain committed to each other- even through all of the shit.

What was life-changing to me was not the climax of the story, but rather the dénouement. She ends this story with the following powerfully true paragraph:
"When the last speck of fairy dust is gone, and you are married to exactly the person you married and not any fantasy of your own, you find out whether you have what it takes to make it through a few more decades of togetherness. It takes commitment, it takes forgiveness, it takes resignation and compromise, but with all of this, you still have to feel tenderness. The person you see in those eyes that meet yours across the pillow, or the dining room table, or over the head of the child whose hands you hold- if that person still touches something wordless in you, you can imagine that there are still good parts left, still surprises in the story. You can only find out what happens when you believe in love if you believe in love. We choose to believe.”

Reading this brought me back to the re-examination of my last relationship, the “one that broke both the camel’s back and my heart”. In the three-plus years since I’ve been saddled with what I perceived were a malfunction corazon and an inability to fix my “loving soul”, this paragraph made me realize two freeing things. Firstly, even though ______ and me shared a commitment, neither one of us was necessarily committed to the idea of it. I woke up every morning wondering if this was going to be the last day of my relationship; because I knew I had not been my true self going into it (turns out that day would be December 23rd!). I had not presented to my man the REAL Chad from day one, and that built up every day into a fear of being “found out”, of being less than desired and ultimately a disappointment to him. It would only stand to reason, I thought, that this disappointment would lead to an inevitable dissolution of the relationship. I watched and checked and re-checked myself every day to make sure that the person I had presented had still fallen in line with the false persona I had put forth, with no flaws in the lining of this persona, no questions of consistency with what I had said or done as this ‘pseudo-person’, and no cause for pause as to the authenticity of this character I had made up. It was completely mentally exhausting!!!! Anything that takes up that much energy to keep up eventually will falter and fail miserably.

I wanted him to believe that I was (we were?) the exception and not the rule, even as I knew the rule applied to me (us). Meeting someone online and having sex with them at the first available opportunity COULD lead to true love. I’m not saying it can’t happen, I’m just saying that it can’t happen with me; this I know. However, I was trying to convince him (and perhaps myself) otherwise. Two people with VERY active online lives (and multiple screen names) CAN decide overnight that they just want to be with each other and trust never be an issue. Again, not saying it doesn’t happen, just not in my world. Yes, it IS possible for us to completely isolate ourselves from our friends and family in order to keep outside forces from influencing us as we build this (weak?) foundation of a relationship that we’re working on. Not even (in my opinion) in the most mature relationships is that possible, baby! One more time: could work for someone else, not in my way of thinking.

But it would be a combination of all of these and couple of other things that would lead us down the road to dishonesty, infidelity, rage, conceit, hurt and pain. I don’t know if these were ______’s issues, but I know he definitely had a few of his own going into the relationship as well. Perhaps one day we’ll both be mature enough to handle an honest discussion, though I doubt it. There’s an old Rwandan proverb which says “you can eat from a lie once, but not every day”, and I would be surprised if we were able to sit down and really talk about all of the ingredients that we both put into the poisonous stew from which we ate everyday for almost 2 years. It would be like getting food poisoning from a restaurant and going back to find out exactly at what point you got sick. If you’ve made it past the point where you’re not running to the toilet every 5 minutes, what does it matter? Moreover, the question of whether you would try a different entrée at that same restaurant is entirely up to you; my feeling is that there are enough restaurants in the world that can nourish you and please your palate and experience to prevent you from having to revisit a poisonous pit, no matter how much you like the décor.

But all of this leads me to the second freeing thing, and my “a-ha moment”. When the fairy dust cleared, neither one of us had or embodied commitment, forgiveness, resignation, compromise or tenderness. How could we continue? Going forward with the restaurant allegory, _____ no longer wanted to dine at the “shell” of the bistro Chez Chad any more than I wanted to endure the wait list at the impenetrable _____ steakhouse. What we presented to each other- whether or not they were our true selves- did not in the end please each other’s palate. Additionally (speaking only for myself)- if I were honest with myself- even though I’d honestly be ambivalent to try the aperitif of sex at his “steakhouse” again, I could never truly see myself partaking of the complete meal of intimacy again- the risk of poisoning would be too great in my mind.

Natalie said you can only find out what happens when you believe in love if you believe in love. Well, in 2003, we chose not to believe. What I learned from that whole experience is nothing- absolutely nothing- that begat in Schadenfreude and deception could ever prosper.

But I digress….