October 19, 2015

On the emotional front I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker.  Even more so as the years tumble one on top of another.  But I notice that pushing send on this post feels risky, makes me feel vulnerable.

Recently I had a ‘moment’.  A moment of awareness about a relationship that was at one time very, very special and central in my life.  Through ignorance rather than meanness, I had shut it down and relegated it to the over and done compartment of my psyche.

In spite of closing my heart to it, it never really went away.  It lived in the recesses of my mind as a gnawing sense of something not quite right, a critter taking just a tiny bite off the edge of even the best of my relationships.

One morning, after years of wondering what was wrong with her, this lovely woman who I’ve seen only once in the last decade, I woke up to a new perspective.  I saw a hidden reality that spoke about me, not about her.  The answer came.  Nothing!  There’s nothing wrong with her!

What I saw in me is what cracked my heart open.  What kept me feeling estranged and hard-hearted was something hidden in me, not in her.  All those years ago I had felt jealousy.  And because that wasn’t a feeling I had often encountered as an adult, I didn’t recognize it.  So it was left to fester in my unconscious and eventually destroy a perfectly wonderful relationship.

When I had the aha the wall came down, my heart cracked open, and I could see her clearly for the first time in all the years of our estrangement.

And then a second aha, as powerful as the first.  After realizing there was nothing wrong with her, came the realization that there was nothing wrong with me.  I didn’t need to hide from or wallow in guilt for being human.

Jealousy is part of the human condition and it only bites us in the butt when we don’t see it for what it is–information that there’s probably something we need to give to or do for ourselves.  It would have been lovely if I had been able to see that at the time.  But I couldn’t know what I didn’t know before I knew it.

I don’t know if she’ll respond to the olive branch I extended.  Receiving her forgiveness isn’t my primary intention in reaching out.  My primary intention is to offer the truth as I see it today–that my upset was about me, not about her–so that I can move forward with an open heart.

And with that, an open heart, I’m free.