For over a month he did not write. A tiny wisp of white cloud had been drifting quietly, far off on the horizon of his heart for many months, and now suddenly it began to grow and spread and darken across the expanse of his sky. There was fear and danger and foreboding in it. The cloud spread rapidly and grew black with a reddish churning intensity and fury. It blotted out the late summer Sun. It hung low and heavy with pain and torment welling up in its breast. It was the raging storm of lost love, and he knew it had come for him now. He knew it would not be denied. He knew he could not hide, or run, or argue or trick it out of the prize it had come to claim.
For as long as he had known her, he had loved her. For nearly as long, he had known that she loved him too. But with all this knowing, there had always been a distinct difference in the nature of their feelings toward each other. They had danced around the awkwardness of it. They both cherished the connection they had, and were not willing to harm it. But always, the little cloud lingered on the horizon. Occasionally it drifted across the Sun, dropping the temperature perceptibly.
Now suddenly the cloud had a life of its own. He was aware that he must answer to the dark thing, and now was the appointed time. He knew that the love he had envisioned and nurtured toward the Moon’s little sister was not to be fulfilled. At first, his heart caved in under the stifling force of this bleak oppression. How could he live without the hope of their love? What substitute could he ever hope to find that could rival the power and beauty and joy and sweetness they shared? He was utterly undone, and spent days lost in despair.
But as usual, she remained clear since it was not her heart that was breaking. She knew the strength and nature of her love for him, and was steadfast, though not certain that he would be able to continue their sweet friendship in the face of his horrid, heart wrenching loss. He had hoped for romance to flower between them. She had never been moved clearly in this direction, and to his bitter comfort, had not pretended for his benefit.
Now, after nine months of deep, close intimacy, he came face to face with reality. What they had shared had not stirred romantic passion in her heart, and it was not reasonable to expect that anything further that could happen between them would do so. She was the trusted friend of his deepest heart, but would never be his lover.
The thick smothering sorrow and heart wrenching loss of this fact settled over his world on Friday afternoon. It was more than he could bear. He agonized and thrashed his way through a long sleepless night and into the empty lifeless light of a crisp clear Saturday morning. They talked that Saturday. It was torture for him, but in spite of his agony, he could not turn his back and sulk away. He must engage his sorrow. He must not allow it to swallow up their friendship. As always, she seemed strong and clear and able to weather his storm.
As Saturday wore on into Sunday, he began to embrace the feelings of sadness and longing and fear and anger that washed over him in wave after wave after wave of unrelenting anguish. He found that as he opened himself fully to the feelings—as he devoted his entire force of being to them—they were transformed from oppression and constriction into open expansive energy. There was a miracle in the works. There was a transformation taking over his heart that he could never have dreamed possible out of such bitter, crushing sorrow.
As Sunday wore on into afternoon, he began to realize that he had never embraced his grief for any relationship loss he had ever experienced. He had always doggedly pushed back against the feelings for weeks and months and even years, until the pain eventually gave up the bruising battle against time. But this time was different, and he was discovering a new sweetness and power in these wrenching hard miseries. First, he turned his attention to his divorce, and then to the loves he had known and lost long ago in his youth. He let waves of heartache swell up out of each of these broken dreams. And as they flooded up from forgotten places, he embraced each of their sorrows with tender enthusiasm.
Anguish was transformed. Now he began to wash and drift in a rising flood of joy and peace and acceptance. The hurt and sorrow and brokenness of four lost loves welled up and flooded his heart before sunset. Feelings of sorrow and grief from each of them had risen to the surface, and all were still present with intense depth and richness in his heart. He had embraced them one by one. He had received them passionately and with tenderness. Now, they could not harm him. Now, these horrible monster feelings that he had run so desperately away from throughout his whole life were becoming his most cherished prizes.
He spoke to her again. Now, his sense of loss and longing were tempered and sweet. There was a strength in him that he had not known before. He still loved her just as he always had. But he had found the center point of his love. It did not rest in her, as he had always assumed that it did. It was somewhere deep down inside his own heart. He had discovered his own joy. He had discovered his own capacity to live and love and embrace even the darkest experiences of loss and rejection and loneliness. Now he could love her without concern for her response—regardless of whether or not romance ever bloomed. Now he could hold the full body of that love in his heart and move on, strong and sure in his own balance and rest. Now, for the first time in his life, He drew love from deep within himself rather than tapping into the heart of another. The transformation could not be expressed in words. The field of energy and peace and comfort emanating from within him was new and uncharted. Sorrow and longing were still present. In fact, they were magnified in this new life bubbling up within him, but they were strangely comfortable and welcome. Love had found its core.
He did not know what tomorrow would bring. He knew that his friendship with the little sister of the Moon would endure and thrive outside the quest for romance. He knew that she had been the catalyst for the most powerful experience of his life thus far. He had found that all his past loves still lived within him waiting for this transformation. And so, he knew that she too would always hold her sacred place in his heart He also knew that he was still eager to reach out to share his love. He would enter into love with a clear, strong, open heart, as he had never done before in his life. Now he would focus for a time on nurturing and cultivating that strength and clarity and openness as he ventured out into his big wide new world.
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