We play, we win. We play, we lose. We play. -Jeanette Winterson (1)
Love is a conquering force- a wild frightful wind stirring and pummeling; outside logic, outside time. It doesn’t care for equity, for comfort, for plans or punctuality. To live, we must throw ourselves into the storm.
It hurts so much.
What can we do when someone we love turns suddenly, and we see that the person we thought we knew was not there at all? Or worse, they are there, betraying their own most noble self? What can we do?
We can feel the pain. Cradle it, sniff it, absorb it; feed on it. Let it become us, the way the zebra becomes the lion. I’m speaking straight here – not setting the paragraph up for a “But…” transition. Look at that pain, weigh it in your hand.
Eat it.
The pain of betrayal is part of our very fabric of Being. Were you ghosted? Lied to? Ripped off? Scorned by those whom you turned to for help? You trusted someone, and it turned out poorly for you. Now what?
Don’t turn away from this truth. This is a time of splitting, of breaking and dissolution. Don’t deny the regal stature of your loss.
This has happened to me, more than once or twice. Hopefully not again for a long time. This has happened to you. We feel fooled. Surely I did this to myself, yes? But it’s more complicated than that, whether this person is a scoundrel or a coward, or just hurting in their own way. They said they trusted you: they didn’t. They said they loved you: they didn’t. You thought you could trust them and love them: you can’t. It is not useful to paint over these facts. Lessons left unlearned will only stain through again later to haunt us. Choose your path: sorrow can be a teacher or a devil.
When was the last time you felt really gutted?
Eat this pain. Taste the blood in your mouth.
Was it a lover, a friend, a sister, a parent?
Chew.
A teacher or a student? Spouse or child?
Chew.
Maybe even just someone who reached out from the online aether and made you feel noticed for a while. Proximity is not always a physical state. Nowadays false comrades can latch onto us from far-away places with exotic names like Dublin or Paraguay or Missouri.
Chew.
Distance is not always a matter of horizon lines.
Swallow.
Trace again the specificity of this hurt – its name its face its perfume. Don’t let this lesson go unlearned, to leave you open again to be fooled – or, gods forbid, to close yourself so tight that you never trust again! Sate your hunger and metabolize; fill this empty place and then walk into the rain; through the grass or across the concrete. Outdoors and open, free and slow and proud.
They will never have you again.
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Jason is an artist, writer, and non-denominational minister with a garden and a lifelong interest in lurking around the Occult/ Paranormal shelves in bookstores worldwide. As Sun Duel they record and sometimes perform music with a variety of friends and loved ones. www.linktr.ee/JWT9000
Works Cited:
(1) The Passion, Jeanette Winterson. 1987 Bloomsbury Publishing, Great Britain. Grove Press, NY. (p133)
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