I have never experienced anything like what I experienced on our first encounter together.
It’s hard to describe in words, it was like our beings were both called forth in each other's presence. I don’t know if they illuminated each other or they just shone from being in connection with each other or both. All I know is that when I was with you in your presentness, anything was possible, it was so ecstatically alive, adventurous and fun.
I remember how we would just look at each other and laugh, incredulous and overjoyed about what was happening between us, we just couldn’t believe our luck to have found each other, we both said it felt like we had known each other for lifetimes and I think maybe we have. I was already deeply in love with you by the end of that night, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
Even now, 6 years later, I cannot think about it without tearing up. It was the stuff fairytales are made of, literally, because that’s the moment I started to create a fairytale or fantasy world about you and our love story.
I see now how I began to see things through the filter of the fantasy, which ignored parts of reality that I did not want to see. I didn’t even realise I was doing it at the time, it was not a conscious decision, and that is why fantasies are so sneaky.
The cracks in this particular fantasy didn’t really start to come into my awareness until about 3 years down the line, when I literally bumped into them (you know the moment) and I could no longer fool myself about it.
I was as enthusiastic as ever about being with you. Yet your attention and curiosity towards me were diminishing, and that light, which called forth my being, got dimmer and dimmer in my presence.
I sense in part it happened because in this dead fantasy I didn’t challenge you, I wasn’t dangerous anymore and being with me became this squishy warm space where you could come and rest.
You fell asleep for increasingly longer periods, until the sleeping version of you was more present in my experience of you than the awake one.
To me your lack of aliveness had the gravity of actual death, nothing could be more terrible. Yet you seemed to simply accept this dying without a fight, you said “it’s just how it goes in relationships, the love deepens and transforms and the ‘passion’ fades away”. You seemed resigned to your bulshit story and I couldn’t believe you could just accept the loss of something so hugely important (to me) without wanting to do something about it.
I knew something else was possible because I was living proof of that and if I could feel it then so could you and so SHOULD you.
So I made it my secret mission to recover it, to fix it, to make you see.
I dreamed and schemed of us having this intense and alive relating space that was a vessel for healing, growth, transformation, ecstatic creation, raw intimacy, exploration and ultimate pleasure and sensuality. I wanted to embark on discovery journeys and crazy adventures together. I wanted your light to shine on my being like it had before and to be fully seen, delighted in and held by you.
And more than just wanting it, I was there on the front line, available, all in, fully committed.
But you, my battle partner, were not there where I was, furthermore, there was no evidence that you really wanted to get there. You said you were perfectly content and simply did not feel the motivation to do anything about it, you were happy with the way things were and had other priorities in your life.
I didn’t want to accept that because I was not ok with being where you were, I decided I knew better and it was better for me and you, if you changed.
In my fantasy there was no possible way you did not want those same things with me, you just didn’t know how much you wanted it yet, and if I just learnt enough and grew enough and was good enough then you would realise it.
Alas, we are all on our own journey and I can’t go on your journey for you, the only thing I can do is respect your ‘what is’ and choose to accompany you from there, or not.
By deciding and trying to do it for you I am robbing you of your life lessons, if that even is indeed your lesson in this life.
I chose to ignore your reality and in disregarding it, I disregarded you.
Many times I felt resentful about not being seen by you and now I see I was mirroring you.
Because I didn’t see you.
By not accepting where you were, trying to convince and manipulate you, then making you wrong when you didn't change, by not accepting what was for you, I abused myself and you.
And I feel very sad about that and I want to say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you in what was for you.
I wanted what I wanted to be with you. I was so sure I was right and that you should want it too.
And thinking something should be a certain way is denying reality.
I see now how this fantasy made me the victim in our relating.
I was so terrified of reality and what it might mean.
I am not saying all this to beat myself up or fall into another fantasy of hope, that if I had just done things this way or that way then it would have turned out different.
Things were exactly how they should have been and couldn’t have gone any different.
I just want to take responsibility and recognise that there are always infinite possibilities to choose from and we always decide what we create.
And this thing which I am realising now is huge for me, because noticing it I now have a choice about doing it again or choosing something different.
And if I get really real about what is right now then I have to admit I still don’t accept it. It seems too cruel that we can share such a beautiful connection, something that is literally once-in-a-lifetime (so far in this life) … and that it didn't go the way I want it to go.
And I sense how getting to the stage of accepting it is about growing up about being in reality. I observe how childlike and naive this fantasy is. And in spotting this one I am starting to spot other ones that are blocking me from being present and therefore being able to create.
For example I also have this picture of what being the creator of my own reality looks like. It's something like I get to have or make happen whatever I want, whenever I want, and just how I imagine it, like Mickey Mouse waving his hands in Fantasia. Which is ironic because he also has tantrums when things don’t go his way. And that is often my reaction when fantasy collides with reality.
To create something I see now I first have to have a clear vision of the current reality and be courageous enough to accept it and be with the feelings that come with it… and then take it from there.
Just coming back to reality time and time again until it becomes my home.
Being anywhere other than where I am right now, is a fantasy.
And so is trying to dictate or control how something is going to look or be.
Another way of saying it is “seeking certainty is the ego’s unconscious fear about the intensity of continuously coaxing out of nothing, that which does not yet exist. Creation happens within the terror of the uncreated.” (Copylefted from Clinton Callahan.)
I digress.
This is not just a sorry letter, it is a thank you letter, it is a celebration letter.
I have and still am learning so much from relating with you and the immense amount of love, joy, anger, sadness and fear I experienced,, maybe that is why we shared such a deep bond, not to have a ‘happy ever after’ rather because we were meant to help each other learn all these life-changing things.
I want to say thank you for that, thank you for all the beauty, the adventures, the lessons and for being by my side throughout, because even if it’s not exactly how I wanted it to be, you were there and you did the best you could with the tools you had and I appreciate you more than I know how to express.
And if I can just drop the fantasies I will look around and know that everything is just how it should be, because that is how it is. And how it is is perfect.
It is not the time to give this letter to you, instead I quietly send it out into the online domain. Perhaps someone might read it and feel inspired to get acquainted with reality too.
