I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. (Alfred Lord Tennyson 1850)
I have been in mourning for a month ... 30 days and several hours to be exact. I have never felt anything like this before. Oh sure I was in pain when my marriage broke up ... but not like this. It has been almost 3 years since that pain and it was different. I was betrayed and lied to and all after being treated like crap for years. I felt stupid and gullible for staying in that loveless marriage for all those years. But as my mother pointed out to me on Thanksgiving ... it didn't hurt like this because I was not in love with him.
But I am learning some valuable lessons from this pain ... Just because I want it doesn't mean I can have it ... (most people figure that out when they are 5 not 50) Doing the right thing is hard and doing the wrong thing is easy ... I may never feel love again but I felt it and I never truly did before and so yes it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all ... no matter how much this hurts. A friend asked me 2 years ago if I wanted the roller coaster or the merry-go-round and I chose the roller coaster ... so it is my own fault.
High school taught me one lesson ... sad to say this is really the only lesson that has stuck with me all my life ... the class was Science but the teacher was more of a philosopher than science teacher ... He said "for as high as you go ... you will go that low ... appreciate the good because the bad will come" I stumbled upon this verse a few weeks ago ... Ecclesiastes 7 verse 14 "when things are going well for you, be glad, and when trouble comes, just remember: God sends both happiness and trouble; you never know what is going to happen next." So this is where I am ... waiting to see what will happen next. The last chapter of my life was brilliant ... who knows what the next chapter holds ... but it has become abundantly clear that I have no idea what, when or where that chapter will take me.
I am reminded again of the quote by Lean Horne ... "It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it." I have always been able to carry the load no matter how heavy ... but this one is breaking me.
My friends all mean well with their words of encouragement and advice ... but they don't feel what I feel ... to quote Brandi Carlile "they don't know who I really am and they don't know what I've been through" ... but it is amazing to me what good friend I have and it helps so much to know they care.
Part of me holds on to a little hope (even though that makes me feel pathetic) ... but silence speaks volumes and right now the silence is deafening ...
Last weekend I broke one of my favorite things ... and it didn't bother me a bit ... reminded me that I would cry every time I drove by the house I grew up in ... until my sister's boyfriend Harvey died and then I realized things are just things ... but when you lose love that's something to cry about.
