You son of a bitch
That is the first coherent thought I can remember after learning of the suicide of my… what is the word for someone whom you have loved for almost 2 years and to whom you just 10 days before said “Your addiction is killing you and us. I can’t bear this destruction. I love you and I cannot be around you anymore,” what is the term for that person? After 2 years I called it off because the self-destruction of my beloved was too much for me. The broken promises, the chaos and drama, this wasn’t what I signed up for and not how I live my life. He had said he wanted a quieter existence. He wanted gentleness, honesty and transparency. Yet, whether conscious or not, each choice he made was away from connection and honesty and toward separation, isolation, pain. And yet I continued to love him. I could feel the soul behind the pain and I wanted so much for him to know joy and peace. And, to be honest, even after I spoke those words of goodbye, I hoped that he would get back into his recovery program and we could build a life together, a life we had talked of many times in our cabin in the woods.
And I’m set to go to that cabin in the woods in 2 weeks. I had invited him to come with me, to live this dream we spoke of so frequently. And he said right after he just finished this project, after one more thing to do for someone else. But that is what he’d always said to me. I’ll see you for (Saturday, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, your birthday, the play, the movie) right after I finish this project. And it got to where I quit making plans with him because I was tired of being forgotten, ignored, and replaced by the excitement of the addiction at hand.
You fucking jerk
Now there is no hope of a tomorrow for us. There is no us and there is no tomorrow. Ten days after I said goodbye, he said goodbye. He had been drinking very heavily and took a bottle and a gun to bed with him.
You selfish jerk, this is exactly what I was talking about.
He was in desperate pain. I know that. In a bizarre and unwished for joke of the gods, he and I had a psychic connection. It took me a while to understand that what I was feeling and experiencing was not me but him, his inner chaos, and I never learned how to block out the craziness when it really began to overtake him. Our connection was such that I frequently knew his dreams, we would wake at the same moment from slumber, him saying, “I had the weirdest dream,” and I would begin to describe it. I used to fantasize about that kind of connection with a lover, but this wasn’t what I’d thought it would be. I mean, sure, sharing weird dreams about a red sled on a mountain is benign enough but that wasn’t the typical situation, frequently he was haunted, traumatized, psychically screaming in terror and pain, trying desperately to hide from the monsters. That is what I felt so frequently. And I tried so very hard to save him. I tried to show him ways to cope, therapists to visit, meditations and eating to support a gentler and more loving inner life. Yet after a week or two he would return to his agitated state and work would require his full attention all day, all night, all weekend. And I was left alone with an angry and shut-down being. It was like camping on Mount St. Helens in early May 1980. You knew it was going to blow, but you had no idea how it would go or how devastating it would be. And so I left the volcano that was my lover. And then I got the news, “some terrible news. Michael committed suicide this morning.”
And so he isn’t hurting any longer, for that I am grateful. He had come to me in a dream about 36 hours before he died, and it was a terrible dream, chaotic, screaming, confusing, thrashing about. It was horrible and it was how his internal landscape felt and why he tried, unsuccessfully, to drown it out with his many addictions. He hoped something would work. He hated himself more and more with each succession of failure at drowning out the horror.
How could you give up like this, on you, on life, on us?
Oh sure, he is not hurting any longer but I am. Those he left behind who felt his pain, who loved him, we are left in terrible, terrible pain. And I can’t feel that he isn’t hurting, I feel him still and he feels confused still. I pray for him, I pray he will be taken into God and then remember who he truly is, a child of God, a part of God, knowing and joyful and one with all of us. And I pray that I’ll feel him when he has that peacefulness. I pray I will hear that gravelly voice and see in my heart those green eyes and feel his presence envelope me. And that I will find forgiveness, for myself for not being able to withstand the pain and save him, forgiveness for him for not being able to face his demons.
I still love you
Will I be cautious in the future, will I build my own wall around my heart? Will I hear about someone’s 12 step program and decide there’s no way I’m going down that path again? Every relationship we enter leaves its mark on us; I guess whether the mark becomes scarring that hinders or understanding that opens my compassion further is up to me. Every moment is a choice in the creation of this experience. If I get hurt and choose to build a wall to protect my vulnerability, if I choose to battle the attackers, then soon I will find myself walled in and battling only myself. I see this is true. We create the monster that lurks in our mind and heart and we must be the ones to decide to shine the light of forgiveness and compassion on the monster. Love is the greatest vanquisher of all, because it opens up fully to all. And I must trust my own courage and strength, I must remember to show up and do the things that nurture my being, do the meditations, journaling, exercise and connecting with people every single day. I can honor the soul inside my beloved and tortured friend and remember this lesson of choosing love, forgiveness, and compassion every moment.
What’s that you say?