Love fails us. And we fail in loving. And both of those hurt like hell.
Recently I lost my faith in unconditional loving. In several relationships I had an ending of the naive believe that love would endure through all things. Most poignant was my relationship with my mother. She was the one person who I thought I could count on for constant and selfless loving. I know it's a high pedestal to have put her on, but I'm still a young woman and haven't had all those silly notions knocked out of my head yet. I've been angry with her for over a year now and continued to justify that anger in all sorts of ways to avoid letting it go. But finally I just got tired of carrying it around and tired of feeling so bitter and angry. This hurt combined with other similar hurts and conspired to make me feel pretty disillusioned.
Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
HAFIZ
Really I felt like it's so hard to find someone to carry the faith in your best self, to choose to see your goodness when faced with your ugliness. Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls this the "not beautiful". She tells a story in Women Who Runs with the Wolves called "Skeleton Woman" where a fisherman catches a skeleton while he's out on his boat and runs all the way back home with the skeleton lady on his tail since she's tangled up in his line. The faster he runs, the faster she follows, all the way into his hut. Eventually he gets over his horror, untangles her and brings her back to life as a beautiful young lady with his kind attention. Kind of poignant metaphor: we see a glimpse of the "not beautiful" in one we love and take off for the hills, but can't outrun it. Love fails and we must face that failure, choose to love that ugly side of our loved one, choose not to not let go in the steep terrain and make a decision to not fail love even though love has failed us. You gotta kiss the hag, maybe even make sweet love to that ugly bitch and there's no guarantee shes gonna turn back into a smoking hot princess. Love is the god of all of us, flawed since it shows up only through each other. Carrying that faith in another's best self despite their failings is a choice, but really it's the only good choice.
Recently I lost my faith in unconditional loving. In several relationships I had an ending of the naive believe that love would endure through all things. Most poignant was my relationship with my mother. She was the one person who I thought I could count on for constant and selfless loving. I know it's a high pedestal to have put her on, but I'm still a young woman and haven't had all those silly notions knocked out of my head yet. I've been angry with her for over a year now and continued to justify that anger in all sorts of ways to avoid letting it go. But finally I just got tired of carrying it around and tired of feeling so bitter and angry. This hurt combined with other similar hurts and conspired to make me feel pretty disillusioned.
Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
HAFIZ
Really I felt like it's so hard to find someone to carry the faith in your best self, to choose to see your goodness when faced with your ugliness. Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls this the "not beautiful". She tells a story in Women Who Runs with the Wolves called "Skeleton Woman" where a fisherman catches a skeleton while he's out on his boat and runs all the way back home with the skeleton lady on his tail since she's tangled up in his line. The faster he runs, the faster she follows, all the way into his hut. Eventually he gets over his horror, untangles her and brings her back to life as a beautiful young lady with his kind attention. Kind of poignant metaphor: we see a glimpse of the "not beautiful" in one we love and take off for the hills, but can't outrun it. Love fails and we must face that failure, choose to love that ugly side of our loved one, choose not to not let go in the steep terrain and make a decision to not fail love even though love has failed us. You gotta kiss the hag, maybe even make sweet love to that ugly bitch and there's no guarantee shes gonna turn back into a smoking hot princess. Love is the god of all of us, flawed since it shows up only through each other. Carrying that faith in another's best self despite their failings is a choice, but really it's the only good choice.
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