I’ve been trying to sort a lot out these days,
searching for answers to riddles which have been dogging me,
teasing the edges
and hidden corners-
the deepest recesses of my mind and being.

I’ve never been a big fan of puzzles, as they can be quite… frustrating.
Especially when pieces you think will fit, don’t. You can try to force them, but they were never designed to join up.

This morning it came to me;
a simple yet profound epiphany.

I didn’t fall in love with him.

I fell in love with me.
With my own feelings-
long dormant and perhaps
coaxed to the surface
at the time I met him.
But those feelings weren’t for him.
They were for me,
I now clearly see.

I had been going through some internal shit prior to that time –
three and a half years ago.

My life a circus of chaos
and fun-house mirror distortions-
a series of seemingly endless loops,
jumping through hoops,
banging my head against walls
and meeting dead ends.

Then…I felt alive again,
though I was never dead-
just bored and bewildered,
disillusioned and disenchanted.

If I was “lost”, it was deep within
what I deemed a hopelessly lonely life.

Thus, what looked to be a “connection”…
a burgeoning “romance”, wasn’t.

And deep inside (where honesty resides),
I think I always knew that.

In him I thought I heard the echo
of my own voice,
my own song,
my soul I felt was hollow.

I was wrong.

I recall  something  Madonna said,
along these lines, during an interview many years ago.
Something about how when you fall in love, you really fall in love with yourself.

Exactly.  It’s so obvious
with blinding clarity now.
I saw positive qualities in myself because someone *told* me they were there.
I started playing music in the car again.
I started caring about what to wear.

And it would seem paradoxical~
as you can also feel like you are losing yourself when “in” another’s space…in their sphere.
It’s so trippy.
You feel like you disappear.

I’m thinking of Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You” (still and always a hauntingly beautiful song).

I always sought an escape from myself.
I wanted to see me..through another’s eyes.
And it was the same for him,
though he might not realize.

But that’s not my business.

It was an unintended act of selfishness,
though I cringe at that ‘diagnosis’.
And love, REAL love,
is supposed to be unselfish.
It’s not supposed to feed the ego.
Real love’s goal is the well-being of the other.
Not a takeover.

Yet…a certain amount of ego is healthy, when it is intact, not fractured.
Not wounded.
Not looking constantly to be healed
by another’s laying on of hands.

Hmm.

The thing is-
I am the same person I was before we met.
I thought about this a few days ago,
when observing and enjoying alone,
a spectacular sunset.

When the “it” which never really WAS,
reached its inevitable expiration date,
I felt discarded.
Tarnished.
I didn’t want to forget.
We licked the wounds
made of regret.

But in reality?
I had been polishing my own gold all along, and now it shines brighter than ever.

*I* shine brighter than ever.

I never needed him for it,
though I suppose, at the time,
he was a kind of conduit.

(Look at me–being my own armchair psychologist.)

We MUST truly know ourselves, or we keep seeking it in others.
The songs seem to tell us to lose ourselves to another. But that’s false.

I blame dopamine.
Raised serotonin and oxytocin levels, really.
The bonding molecules.
Let’s face it: meeting him was a fix.
A hit.

I am not, in fact, “lost” without him,
despite these months of acute pining.
I never was.
I fell for whom I discovered..living under my skin, deep within my own heart.

As for him?
Well he similarly fell for himself, as seen through *my* eyes.
And now we are both hurting,
but hopefully, a bit more wise.

Am I a bit guarded and cynical now
due to these events, and our parting?
I suppose I am.
But this was, and still is,
a lesson I desperately needed to learn.

I still believe in love.
I am coming to to terms of the reality of what I thought it was-
the “us” which in fact, wasn’t.

I believe in myself,
and all that my heart holds.
All is has to offer…
which I can give to myself.

It’s true.
Who knew?
Now I do.

This is day three
of being tear-free.
And it’s because this truth
finally shone
like dawn on me.