As you are he

This is the second of a three-part blog. You can find part one here. The motivation for this was reading the book Eat Pray Love which, as I've discussed with other people, everyone gets something different out of. I could not recommend this book more.

The interesting thing about this book was that I expected to get through it much the same as I’ve gotten through so many other books, with barely a passing “well, that was entertaining.” If I find a book that makes me cry, it usually has to do with the characters that have been so well-woven throughout the story that I can’t help but hurt for them.

Rarely does a book bring me to tears because it causes me to reflect internally.

This one did. From the section I thought least likely to get to me. It was from her time in India, where she spent searching spirituality and a closeness to God. Many of you know just from reading any of my archives that I’m in limbo when it comes to spirituality and God. I didn’t think that this section would have anything to offer me.

But hoo boy, it’s a good thing I had already come back home and was on my back porch reading, rather than on the Starbucks patio for reading this one.

She goes over to India to study in her Guru’s Ashram (basically a holy place), and there she meets a man she calls Richard from Texas. The conversation she had with Richard from Texas that hit me most will be best understood directly quoted.

“He says, ‘Give it another six months, you’ll feel better…..Then give it six more. Just keep throwin’ six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time….Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it…

“Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don’t you see what happened? This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching, I mean you got zapped, kiddo. But that love you felt, that’s just the beginning. You just got a taste of love….Your problem is you don’t understand what that word [soulmate] means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave….[his] purpose was to shake you up….tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life.”

“But I love him.”

“So love him.”

“But I miss him.”

“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, and then drop it.”

At that point? She asks how much longer the grieving is supposed to take, asks for an exact date she can circle on her calendar.

Show of hands, how many of you have I asked that of? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Too many to count.

And then, Richard from Texas, he says, “You gotta learn how to let go. Otherwise you’re gonna make yourself sick. Never gonna have a good night’s sleep again…”

Through my tears, I simultaneously hated this Richard from Texas who I’d never met and had to laugh out loud at just how right he was…..and he wasn’t even talking to me.

Now, I’ve mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating. I do not believe in soul mates. Well, I guess I should say I do not believe in the mainstream definition of soul mates. I do not believe that there is that one person out there who is destined to be the love of your life from here to who knows when. I think that good luck, good timing, and a hell of a lot of hard work go into making those long-lasting true love relationships work. Not fate.

But maybe Richard from Texas has a point on this other definition. Because let me tell you. That paragraph up there, where he mentions that the author got zapped, that her heart was broken open and was touched deeper than she thought was possible, about six months ago, that was me. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be capable of even starting down that road ever again. Thought I was broken for life. Somehow, that wasn’t the case. That gives me hope.

It’s interesting. Every single time I think I’m over Ram, something happens that shows me, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that there is still a bit of me that is not. Whether it’s an emotional breakdown during a trip to Chicago, or the shock that goes through me every time he sends me an unprovoked text message, or even sitting on my back porch, reading a story about what happened to a woman an entire world away, that realization hits me far more frequently than I’d like to admit. And it seems to happen every time I become complacent, every time I let my guard down.

But I think Richard from Texas is right. Though I never expected it, never saw it coming, this getting over him business is taking time, and it’s not going to be on my timetable, frustrating though that is. I feel silly, knowing that we weren’t together for very long, but friends, I feel like I should be honest here.

I fell. Hard. Real hard. That whole swooping, stomach in butterflies, ground just fell out from beneath me falling. Yet somehow the logical part of my brain, the part that was determined for there to be a timetable for getting over him, the part that thought that it would be as easy as starting a new workout program and ignoring him for a month, didn’t prepare the rest of me for what it would feel like when that month of silence was over….when the lonely times started and the silence became deafening, when logic for once didn’t rule my brain.

That’s what you get when you let your heart win.

I’m not there yet. But I’m trying. And I’m going to follow Richard from Texas’s advice. When those sad thoughts creep up, I’m going to acknowledge them, say hello, I realize you’re here even when I don’t want you to be so I accept you. I’ll remember the good memories. And do my best to move on.