What do you do when you a love a person so badly, but feel like all you do is fail them?? She has reached the self-sacrificing stage, or "I don't deserve him- he is better off without me, all I do is hurt him". She does not understand the concept of a making a change for the better without giving up your ideals. Not changing who you are as a person, but allowing your loved one see yourself objectively and letting them help you mould yourself into an even more awesome person than you already are.
So I just spent 2 hours with her crying her eyes out, and I find this in my morning emails, my daily beautiful CDF newsletter:
"The truth is that there is no cost to loving in a healthy relationship. The 'apparent' cost only brings the loving individual more by growing in a thousand ways that they could never anticipate.
John Welwood writes poignantly on the subject and talks about the transformative power of relationships. We all understand the idea of romantic love, but the power to change and grow through love is a way to discover our true nature.
Paradoxically, through loving we discover our own humanity, we grow and can begin to figure out who we really are.
Yes, Love without fear, regardless of cost."
Sometimes God, the Universe, the Great Cat in The Sky or whoever you believe has their finger on the pulse just provides, in the form of amazing people you've never met.
Once again I am unashamedly plugging Hugh Macleod because he has saved my soul from torment. Watching my friend go through what she is going through is only bringing back terrible, heart-wrenching memories of my own experience. I have tried to say Wise Older Person Things to her but I know it is futile- when you have crossed the border of the Land Of No Return, nothing can save you except yourself. You're on your own in that dark and dreary minefield. I have to watch her go though this process and look back into my past and watch myself at the same time, when rather I wish I couldn't. It's impossible not to draw parallels, the recipe is the same. The outcome may be (I desperately hope for her sake) different, but the journey, that ugly awful journey, is almost a rite of passage everyone has to go through before they can reach the that Upper Plane of Wisdom.
You can tell upon meeting a person if they have had their heart broken and rebuilt. The fresh, sparkly gleam in their eyes is gone, replaced by a dull yet defined shine, the shine that has been attended to and polished but which cannot hide the cracks and mended places. When everyone discusses and gives opinions on what John should do about Mary, they stay quiet and listen with that patient look on their face, and you know they are a fellow member of the Club. The all-knowing and wise club of people that have experienced how life fucks you under, over, and all around town and regardless of any Plan you may have, it comes like a tidal wave and you're powerless. You can't, however, simply explain to a person about this if they are not in the Club. Experience is our leader. Initiation is an individual process not chosen by the individual. There's no grey area, either it's happened or it hasn't.
As I type this she is in our shower with her music going, wailing at the top of her lungs. I am ready to throw up or stab myself. The pure pain behind that noise is something I know all too well and would not wish on my worst enemy. I have to let it happen, though. I have to let her do this. It's a minefield tidal wave situation.
Another recruit for the Club.
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