Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Soulmate, Myself:
Omega Point
Postscript
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Editor's prefatory comment:
Fitzgerald is correct. While heroes serve heroically, their good deeds, in this world, are often hindered or blocked by posturing egos, posing as benefactors, desiring the limelight.
But it’s not just the “heroes” who stand in jeopardy. Show me a romantic couple authentically in love, show me two who were made to be together, then, in this world, “I’ll write you a tragedy.”
However, why the likelihood of mishap and misfortune? On “The Wedding Song” Prologue page, we find a great number of testimonies affirming the reality of Twin Soul love. One of these, channeled from the afterlife, is from Spirit Guides who speak of the “law of repulsion” afflicting the early years of two destined ones. Initial difficulties, misunderstandings, and unkindnesses, they say, will eventually lead to a “law of attraction.”
The Spirit Guides, supervising this proto-couple, will not allow them to come together too soon; there’s far too much for them to learn from ensuing calamities. Later in life, probably still not allowed to be together, they will look back at those formative years and lament, “Nothing went right for us back then. No matter what we tried or did, it always came to nothing, was misinterpreted, or fell apart. This seems like a set-up, like a bad dream wherein nothing could be made to work. No one could be that unlucky, over a long period of time. It feels like we were held apart.”
Read the Guides’ own explanation on the “Prologue” page.
Elenchus offers a personal view:
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Elenchus. I have learned from Spirit Guides, via psychic-medium, that Krissi, for most of her life, has been suffering from bipolar disorder. In my brief readings on this malady, I've discovered that "psychosocial factors play a significant role in the development and course of bipolar disorder... [traumatic] life events and relationships likely contribute to the onset" of this illness.
It means that when she and I had that falling-out when we were young teens, resulting in her refusal to even look at me during our remaining time in school, much of that hurtful experience may have triggered the bipolar condition.
For me, it's all very strange. I still don't know who she really is.
A long time ago, I told her she reminded me of the song “Devil Or Angel”, with the lyric “be whichever you are.” I wasn’t in an altogether charitable frame of mind when I said this, and she wasn’t totally happy with the allusion.
She and I have unfinished business; things to make clear to each other.
After all that's been discussed, I still don't really know what represented her truest feelings and what part was an impaired health condition.
Would you like to know what I remember most in all of our talks? It’s what she said during a happier time of our lives...
E. So, tell me – if “meet me in the middle” leaves you cold, what would you rather see?
it is enough
K. I need to know I can trust the fellow who's asking to sleep with me. Trust is number one. I want him not just as my lover but as my steadfast and trustworthy friend and guide. I want him to serve my highest and best interests, all the time, no days off, no vacations, no excuses, no smile-and-a-handshake schmoozing, no giving-to-get, no techniques, no tactics, just put me as 'priority one' in all his thinking, even if it’s not to his short-term advantage, and even if I disagree with him. I want to be able to trust him, and rely on him, for my life and my eternal life, and, when his vision is very clear, I want him to act unilaterally, without prompting, to do what's best for me - even if I fight him on this. There is good reason why Socrates said that one's most valuable possession is a true and faithful friend. And I’m not interested, at all, not a farthing's worth, in some shallow and self-serving “meet me in the middle” sophism, some stingy counting-out-the-pennies “50-50” negotiation. I can get that in any mercenary business deal. What do I look like, the Teamsters haggling out some contract? - hardly, my dear. There'll be no bargaining with me, I'll tell you that right now. I want it lavish, lavish for me, all on my side. I want it splurged, overflowing, and dripping. I want it sloppy and juicy and all-you-can-eat at the dessert bar. What I want is someone who'll give me 100% of his life, 100% of his best, 100% of his plans and projects, all that he has, all that he is, all that he will ever be, in this world and the next. I don't want much from him, I just want everything, and I want it with a cherry on top, and a chocolate kiss on my pillow, and I want him to surrender all this, to me, just to me, willingly and with joy, with no strings attached. And I want him to shout it from the rooftops, for all the world to hear, that he is mine, all mine, that he wants me, just me, with no reservations and no loopholes. I want him to worship and adore me, to bend the neck and pay tribute, to offer fealty and obeisance - to want me more than his last breath, to cherish and treasure me as his 'pearl of great price'. I want him to want me to such degree that, if my love were all that he had in life, or would ever have in eternal life, he would pledge to God, “It is enough, who could ask for, or receive, anything more?” And when I find that special one, thus moved to action, consecrated to my benefit, for my account, then, I will offer him, not just the same but more - a Kama-Sutra reciprocity of personalized pleasures reified; a swooning array of ecstasies, just what he likes; a plenitude of unspoken desires actualized, what he didn't even know he liked - all crafted to address his unique definitions of the luscious and delicious, his unconfessed dreams and secret fantasies; all these, my goddess gifts to him, my surrendered tokens of absolute allegiance, devotion, and ardency, for our total immersion darling companionship.
But our conversation here occurred some time ago.
said you had a thing or two to tell me, how was I to know you would upset me
You don't realize how much I need you, love you all the time and never leave you, said you had a thing or two to tell me, how was I to know you would upset me, I didn't realize, as I looked in your eyes, I need you, oh yes, you told me, that's when it hurt me, and feeling like this I just can't go on anymore... please remember how I feel about you, I could never really live without you, I need you, I need you, I need you...
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There’s an old proverb warning of the fragile nature of one's reputation.
'said you had a thing or two to tell me, how was I to know you would upset me'
One can lose a good reputation, another’s sense of trust in you – what may have taken 30 years, 50 years, to build – one can lose all this in just five minutes with one vicious attack, or even one equivocal lukewarm response.
The true love relationship, at the foundational level, is not built on sex appeal but trust. You can get sex anywhere; go to any bar, you can get it tonight. But trust, the kind you can build your life around, will cost a few dollars more. What we really want to know is, “Can I trust you to safeguard my life, and not use me for some secondary purpose? Can I trust you to put me number one above all other goals and pleasures in your life?”
Stated differently: Is each "enough" for the other? - or are there false idols competing with true love?
true love and trust will reflect one's essential life-force
One's worthiness of trust will reflect one's essential life-force, part of the "true self". It cannot be constructed or generated with willpower or determination; instead, it must be allowed to manifest and actualize. Genuine trustworthiness is a form of goodness which naturally flows, percolates upward from the depths, when one's deeper person is aligned with the God-life within.
We are headed for Summerland. They say that true love cannot be unrequited there; that those who are meant for each other always find each other. Why do I doubt this?
late-night confessions: the 3 AM spectre
If Krissi were here, I would address her this way:
I imagine you trying to offer explanation. I think you'd be saying you were too conflicted, too burdened, too drained of energy, to send a note of encouragement or apology; even just a word asking me to wait until duties were satisfied - that one good word, the one you never sent, might have sustained me until later.
Despite your purported inner conflict, however, you did, in fact, find enough energy, you were quite able and resourceful, to get a message through which vilified and disrespected me. You were strong enough for that. Remember the creeds we learned as little kids? We had to memorize words which went over our heads: the "sins of omission" - but now we know what that means.
spectacular unkindness, outrageous accusation
You have a way of bringing out the worst in me.
Though it was a long time ago, the open wounds from that famous spectacular unkindness - you know the one - still refuse healing; the outrageous accusation and threat continue to dishearten and poison me at 3 AM; the ghastly memory of calumny still drains the chilled blood from my head and serves as greatest temptation toward resentment and unforgiveness. What is wrong with you?
'oh, yes, you told me, and that's when it hurt me'
stockholm syndrome
You enable those who exploit you. In your own Stockholm syndrome, you side with your captors - these candidates for dark-realm sentencing, these merchants of buffoonery, deceit, and abuse. You strengthen their hands.
your Faustian bargain, a strange coalition with everything you've always hated, and so not like you
A Faustian bargain is an agreement, such that, one surrenders what one knows to be moral and right, a bartering away of one’s soul-based highest principles, in favor of some dubious short-term worldly benefit.
This ill-advised assent - to what you dislike! - quickly became self-defeating as the traded-away wealth constituted far more value than the negotiated-for glass bauble. It is the proverbial Esau allowing himself to be cajoled into exchanging future inheritance, a lifetime of happiness, for a mere bowl of soup.
You felt you wanted, you believed you needed, something; as you saw it, you weren't whole without it, couldn't be happy in its absence. And so, in defiance of your inner-whispering guidance, and natural good sense, you traded your dignity, freedom, your right to self-management -- for the soup-of-the-day... needs a little salt, doesn't taste right.
Esau Selling His Birthright (1626), Hendrick Terbrugghen
'bought and sold you', the fall of the good little girl
What was your Faustian "benefit"? What did you trade for? - that is, trade me for? those trading negotiations conducted in opposition to the inner-whispering assurance that, one day, we, you and I, would finally address unfinished business.
Did you believe that a studied docility, a muting of sensibilities, the adoption of a “good little girl” obeisance, would curry favor with an unjust, humorless, and angry god?
Did they convince you that this straw-god would condemn you for noncompliance concerning their draconian, self-serving, man-made dogma? Is this how they controlled and enslaved you, bought and sold you? – and made you stay -- with their psychological warfare of guilt and intimidation.
all that I knew you to be, thought well of, and admired so much
And how utterly anomalous that you, especially you, should make alliance with the boorish and vulgar, the fear-mongering and controlling, the paint-by-numbers anti-intellectual rabble - you, the diligent and assiduous honor student, paragon of high standard and lofty aspiration; you, the personification of excellent spirit; how antithetical to your refined nature, one of grace, loveliness, and virtue - all that I knew you to be and admired so much - you, the quintessential aesthete, patron of all things cultivated, les beaux arts.
Your odd-bedfellow confederation with lowbrow element stands as the greatest misjudgment, the greatest misstep, of your life, proximate cause to your ruin - decades of soul-numbing misery.
wisdom born of pain
I AM WOMAN
(1971)
oh yes, I am wise
but it's wisdom born of pain
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newfound boldness
You were scrupulous and conscientious not to offend your philistine oppressors; but quite careless and disdaining toward what I might think.
You were bold, felt free, to sin against me - moreover, not just me but, the greater sin, a denial of perceptions of what we, in potentia, are to each other.
already existing in potentia
Werner Heisenberg, arguably, one of the greatest scientists of history, spoke of quantum objects existing in potentia. This is a Greek term borrowed from Aristotle who said that some things exist in a state half-way between mere concept and actuality. Heisenberg wrote in his 1958 Physics and Philosophy: “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.” Descartes posited that there were only two kind of things in the universe, res cogitans, “thinking things,” that is, the mind, and res extensa, “extended things,” things of three dimensions, that is, matter. But Heisenberg would argue for more than mind and matter, a third category, res potentia - things not just of any probability, any potential, to occur, but things that are so likely to happen that, even before manifesting as hard-edged actuality, they must be ascribed a certain degree of reality. This view gave rise to the mathematical “probability wave” which transformed the world as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. But Twin Soul lovers, even before they come together, would contend that they perceived something so real and insistent between them that they were led and influenced by their own version of res potentia, long before they touched and interacted as bona fide romantics.
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Yours was a boldness devolving to cavalier disavowal; as if the future would require no accounting of inner truths perceived; as if what you allowed, with them, represented primary reality, were dispositive to destiny; as if there would be no day of reckoning; as if you would not have to face me one day.
a prison for the mind
Those with whom you make pact, among the most crude and crass, the worldly craven and knavish, are headed for time in a "dark closet"; but you conduct yourself as if God would commend their sordid tactics, requiring you to honor and obey whatever they say.
Adrian Smith uses the phrase, "a prison for the mind." Right now, fearful and guilt-ridden, you are held captive in the dungeon of your own terrorized perceptions, a torture-chamber of tyrannical peer-group definitions of morality.
'I feel so guilty'
Do you remember when you said this to me? I feel so guilty, you exclaimed.
They had battered you psychologicaIly, but yet, I could tell, in your heart-of-hearts, you were not deceived. You knew what they were doing to you, these merchants of fear and guilt. Even so, you could not walk away; not yet.
the conditioning of the tribe, the mind-programming of local nomos
Krishnamurti warned that "people can be conditioned to believe anything." The belief-systems of almost everyone represent geography, where one was born; mere provincial moralities, as described by Herodotus. Are we to be impressed by this formulaic and robotic true-believer-ism?
Herodotus (writing circa 450 BC), in his treatise on the Greco-Persian wars, comments on “nomos,” the Greek word for “custom, convention, or law.” He speaks of the arbitrariness of “nomos,” of how people become accustomed to what they know, what they’re taught, what they want to believe, in a particular culture, religion, or society. These vapors and vicissitudes, illusions of reality, are adopted as “infallible”, enshrined as god-breathed, by each locally-conditioned tribe.
READ MORE
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postured authority
And so you were hoodwinked to set aside rational faculties and sacred responsibility to live as a free and whole person. You surrendered all this to vulgar ones. They promised you "beads and trinkets" to overcome your weakness of needing to be "accepted," the dread of never finding happiness of "the white picket fence," plus your fear of death, your terror of a judging god. These ignoble ones, in alliance, postured an authority over your life, but, in fact, had absolutely none. A victim of local nomos, you entered into agreement with them during your time of fearful immaturity, when you lacked knowledge, of yourself and of the world, and could not defend against their offer of "poisoned candy".
Later, in your growing misery, though beginning to realize your error, you could not break free. Commanding strict obedience, they chained you with an oppressive sense of guilt, a constant browbeating, intimating that you are no-good and unworthy - declaring that a wrathful god would be very displeased, and quick to eternally punish, should you consider defying them to wander off the plantation; that, you did not have the right to think for yourself, to manage, save, and reclaim your own life, to insist on yourself and your own inner-guidance.
you were the first to know
All this inundation of trammeling, a psychological warfare, succeeded in making you too deferential, too subservient, to overthrow ill-founded custom and convention; too intimidated, too submissive, to do what is right, even though your deepest heart informed you of the reality, even though you well knew - because you were the first to know - that we belong to each other; no, you did not forget but felt unable to speak.
girls mature faster, but dull boys have a habit of growing up and seeing everything
I feel angry and disgusted. I had come to believe, wanted to believe, that someday after we’d learned our dire lessons and had suffered enough; after we’d tried everything else and betrayal had run its course; that we would find our way back to, and repent toward, each other; that I -- the boy you once approached to announce your love, the boy who finally realized that he had loved you all along and from the beginning -- that I would be “enough” for you.
never so free and awakened as when in love
In The Matrix: Resurrections Trinity reawakens to Neo, and to the deception of The Matrix, by the power of love. Earlier, Persephone had claimed “It’s just a kiss”; for her this was true, but not for those authentically aligned.
Like Snow White reviving with the kiss of the Prince, there is a force within true love which terrifies totalitarian structures. It is quite right to say: people are never so free, never so in tune with their own sense of dignity and destiny, and never so likely to leave cultish organizations, as when they're in love.
The memory trace of true love touched something very deep within Trinity and Neo. It reconnected them to their authentic selves, a primal affinity which had been crushed by totalitarian element. Suddenly they saw the world as something new, as it truly is, a world making way for romantic relationship as ultimate reality.
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'I didn't realize, when I looked in your eyes'
I feel angry and disgusted - because I want to be with you; even more, I want you. Early on, I was not ready, but now I see everything - however, we've switched roles, and now you're not ready.
paradise lost
Until I am "enough" for you, as you are for me; until I know that I would be chosen above all other options, as I choose you; until you speak plainly to me offering an accounting of your actions, as I will offer the same to you; until mutual trust becomes the air we breathe -- we cannot be together.
'please remember how I feel about you'
postscript 1
I've been learning more about bipolar disorder. The pendulum swing from high to low coherency can be more extreme than I'd known. As I come to better understand this severe dynamic, I find myself less condemning; even so, to be honest, I've had trouble accepting the "insanity defense" concerning your actions.
In your favor, however, during a psychic reading, a competent medium reported that she was accessing the truest sentiments of your higher self. Is this plausible? Can a "higher self" send a message? We're reminded of the case of Adela and Eddie: His plane was lost at sea during time of war, and, it was later learned, they had, in fact, communicated via the "higher self."
You as this higher self, this “better angel" of one's nature, I was informed by the medium, does care for me "deeply" -- stated twice -- and is apologizing for the past hurtful conduct; that, essentially, the unfair personal attack was the illness speaking, did not represent how you really feel, that you could not control your actions.
If this is true, and I’m inclined to believe that it is, then some of my previous comments must be considered as too harsh. Your life-long condition, growing much worse in latter years, caused you to make some very bad judgments and get into situations that were totally not you.
And I was speaking to another psychic-medium. She's well known with thousands of clients and engaged in police detective work solving criminal cases. She was granted a vision of what happened to us early on. She accurately described your normal expressive nature and, when you're feeling well and free, your natural perky and playful exuberance. This is the real you.
She, along with the first medium, saw some of the trouble you’re in, including the oppression you now suffer by others. She asked if I were aware of this. I said I was aware.
She unequivocally asserted that we are Twin Souls. I said I knew this. She said “I’m seeing marriage all over this” for you two; however, she also indicated, it would still be a while. I understood this, as well. She also stated that your time of oppression is finally nearing its end. I am more than glad for this.
Concerning our history, I told the lady that, early on, you were the proactive one, coming to me, wanting to tell me, but I was too immature to understand what you were saying. I was just a young boy, but you were ahead, as girls tend to be in these matters.
I then added, "we've switched roles", as I'm now the more forthcoming one, and, as it took me most of my life to grow up, I intend to lead this now. The psychic lady commented, yes, "you've passed her now". In a way this is correct, but I also think I'm still trying to "get back to zero", trying to catch up, as you were so happy just to be with me during some of our early encounters. In my whole life, nobody has ever delighted in me like that.
I had no idea back then that, what I was receiving could come only from you, that this was it, there was nothing else in life, and I'd never experience it again, with just another pretty face.
walking too far ahead
lying in bed I hear the clock tick and think of you, caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new, flashback, almost left behind, suitcase of memories, you picture me, I'm walking too far ahead, the second hand unwinds, if you're lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time, if you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting, time after time, I will be waiting, I will be waiting... |
'go slow, I fall behind'
you're calling to me, I can't hear what you have said, then you say, "go slow, I fall behind,” the second hand unwinds, if you're lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time, if you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting, I will be waiting... |
drum beats out of time
after my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray, watching through windows, you're wondering if I'm okay, secrets stolen from deep inside, the drum beats out of time, if you're lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time, if you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting, time after time, I will be waiting, time after time, I will be waiting… |
Youth is wasted on the young. It is absolutely incredible to me that God should have allowed me this life-shattering mystical experience right at the beginning -- though I wouldn't know it to be life-shattering until decades later -- given to me even before my “internal radar” had been installed. I can only conclude that it was not yet our time to be together; that, we were required to learn some difficult lessons, and to do so by journeying through much of life, alone; moreover, as there is wisdom in sorrow, these inchoate images of love would yet serve as seedbed for meditation in old age.
Ancient Spirit-Guides instruct that we come to this Earth in order to “wake up,” to become sentient persons in our own right, via this planet’s ubiquitous polar opposites – the hot and cold, good and evil, sweet and sour, up and down, on and on; these are like a jarring splash of ice-water down one’s back. The unenlightened mind, too often, might come to insight and awakening only by way of clashing stark contrast. But is there anything more antithetical, more jarringly dualistic, than entering the haunted aloneness of later years but set against a shimmering-glistening-sparkling memory of an early sweetest darling companionship lost? There appears to be good reason for the poet Rilke’s dictum that the Beloved might be secured only in eternity.
It's been so many years now, the number shocks us, but, you once asked me, "Do you remember when I told you" -- yes -- I remember, but I was surprised that it was still on your mind after so long a time; I remember, because... in my life... I remember little else...
And do you remember when you said, "Let's not lose each other again", and then, "I want to have a glass of wine with you." Instead, we entered a new phase of greater alienation.
And then, later, finally, I told you, I wrote to you, that I was getting off the merry-go-round of swirling life circumstance, and that, when you were ready, you could find me, and I would be there, waiting alone for you. I offered this pledge unilaterally, knowing that no immediate benefit would be forthcoming, just as you once offered a one-sided presentation, words of love, to an unformed and stupid young boy, so many decades ago now.
With awe and reverence, the medium confessed that she found our story “very compelling”; most tragedies are. She’d never seen so many roadblocks and obstacles, so many levels of formidable barrier to love -- like a precious jewel put away in a small sealed box, sequestered within a locked hope-chest, all stashed away in a shut-tight prison cell, secreted within the depths of a fortress mountain - absolutely isolated and cut off; like a farcical-dream in which nothing could be made to go right; of two, having lost each other so early, then spending much of a whole lifetime trying to get back to each other.
Our embryonic interactions, more than other "compelling" love stories, speak to Dickens' doleful poetic imagery: "tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom."
The medium said that she'd counseled, among her thousands of clients, many over the years concerning lost love, and she wishes our story were written down to give to others, to inform that great patience and fortitude is often required to bring authentic relationship to maturity.
And there were other messages via psychic-mediums, to whom I offered no detail of our situation, but immediately there was an accessing of the essence of that which burdens me, with the counsel, “there’s a hidden part of you that you never talk about, but” you are given to know, “time is on your side"; and that, while “your years of being apart are not yet over,” the Guides understand that “you would wait for her, even if she’s 90”; that, though you live alone, the Guides well see your heart affirming that “you are in a committed relationship”.
Concerning our story as “very compelling” and somewhat unique, I’ve often wondered about this, as it seems too strange, even to me. There are many accounts in history of two being required to wait a long time, even into the next life, to be together. All of these, however, essentially, at least had an early time of ostensible love -- the absence of which I've referred to as "the ludicrous proposition". Further, there are also plenty of examples of two enduring an “out of phase” period, one of flagging, and then reviving, sentiment of affection. But, I know of no case as ours, of a “proto-couple,” enjoying mere in potentia status, suffering a different kind of out-of-phase condition, such that one of them is unaware of the other but then, later, switching roles in this incoherency. This is different.
There is testimony by Spirit Guides, superintending the coming together of Twins, who speak of a "law of repulsion" -- orchestrated difficulties, a kind of "set up," in the early years during which little goes right for the destined lovers -- followed, much later, by a "law of attraction." The first phase is meant to create a psychological readiness leading to an awakening of love, a recognition of each other, after a period of suffering. This "textbook method", it's clear to me now, is what happened to us (read about these two "laws" on the "Wedding Song" prologue page).
To those who seek for a true mate, you and I would quickly caution, "Are you ready for Fitzgerald to write you a tragedy?" Be careful what you wish for. You have no idea. And while each couple's history will read a little differently, in some sense, before you're allowed to get to the hearts-flowers-candy stage, before this sacred formative process is over, you might see your life, your joint-life, "turned upside down, inside out, and every which way, but loose.”
postscript 2
I've been lettin' your memory get to me
In times past, I spoke of Adler’s “idealization” and “over-valuation,” how John and Mary view each other unrealistically, and then are later disappointed with what they discover. Ironically, it was the opposite for me.
You were often unkind, even, vicious, and I saw the worst in you, from early on and to later years; in this, you also brought out the worst in me. Any normal guy named “John” would have mentally put you away, long ago, and never looked back. Well, I did try that but could never quite forget you. What I found is, in true love, you will see through the masks and role-playing, all the way to the true person within, what exists potentially, waiting to be actualized, in the soul of the one you love.
Part of me has always seen you as that perfect girl: radiant and glorious, effortlessly lovely and enchanting, naturally gracious and forthcoming, unpretentiously modest and virtuous, unassumingly intelligent and quietly capable, perky and playful, never flirtatious and always real, diligent and striving for excellence, artistic and poetry-in-motion, naturally pure and wholesome, sparkling and shimmering, without flaw or wrinkle.
In my saner moments, I just like everything about you. You've always been, for me, the archetype of what a girl should be.
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- Jim Croce, Recently (1973)
used to be, I could pretend, that I wasn't really hurt back then, but then, recently it seems I've been lettin' your memory get to me, 'cause memories can be friends, or they can take you to a place that you never thought you'd see again, take you to a face that you never ever thought that you would see again, doesn't matter now who was wrong, the future is tomorrow ‘cause the past is gone, an' I'm findin' I'm not as strong as I thought that I used to be, ‘cause recently it seems I've been lettin' your memory get to me
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Used to be I could pretend that I wasn't really hurt back then. I was angry, for years; so angry I wouldn’t allow myself to know what I was angry about. How clearly I recall the process. For nearly 30 years, subliminally, I would not allow myself to listen to the old music. Intuitively, I suspected that this would reopen a deep wound. I'd made an agreement, with myself, not to ask any questions about the past. After many years of this repression - repressing, not just information but repressing my own person - the pain of self-blindness became greater than the pain of dealing with your memory.
Recently it seems I've been lettin' your memory get to me. This imbalance, the resurgence of memory, overturned an established psychological homeostasis, prompting me to seek for reorientation. I did so by daring to listen to the old love songs; which means, I decided to consciously seek for your memory, to allow it to surface. But I was not prepared and would soon discover what I'd been so sedulously avoiding. The music unlocked tightly-sealed doors of the soul. The old love songs from our teen years precipitated a cathartic convulsive release of wallpapered-over sorrow. My own reaction, to myself, was that of absolute shock. I had no idea how dead I was on the inside, with these multiple spiraling-downward layers of despair and grief.
Recently it seems I've been lettin' your memory get to me. The returning spectre of your memory informed me of the nature of my hidden terror. In my traumatic repression, I could now clearly see that I'd gone a little crazy. I had feared that I’d forever lost you - lost you! even before I’d had my wits about me to know that I wanted you. This seemed unconscionably unfair, had secretly enraged me - to finally perceive your secret identity, but only after the game was effectively over.
I'm findin' I'm not as strong as I thought that I used to be. A floating-systemic anger had colored my life. Even so, in my disconsolate meditations, I would bring myself to perceive that my feelings for you, and what you once expressed for me, did not constitute ordinary boy-meets-girl dynamic. And so I couldn't just go out and choose some other "pretty fish in the sea" to sedate myself; I know, because I'd tried this bromide, resulting in more suffering. What I'd experienced with you a long time ago was something utterly irreplaceable and non-fungible. As the poet offered, it became “the feeling which is evidence.”
Memories can be friends, they can take you to a place that you never thought you'd see again. And I concluded that this evidence-of-certainty suggested a grander destiny. It indicated that the arrangement, the details, of our early lives could not have manifested as a function of randomness. Further, I saw that, if God had gone to the trouble of arranging all this circumstance for us, had christened the journey from the start, had brought us this far and to the mystical perceptions of this day, then God would not abandon us now, so near the end, to face a desolate future of unremitting loss of each other.
Used to be I could pretend that I wasn't really hurt back then, but then, recently... Though I still grieve, I begin to accept the past, to see it as part of a necessary classroom; also, to accept that you had your own lessons God wanted you to learn, your own time of trial. And, though you weren't aware of it at the time, I suffered with you.
Doesn't matter now who was wrong. I look forward to meeting you again. But I'm also troubled at the prospect. I won’t know what to say. You'll have to help me with that. And I don't know if we can be together right away. We have unfinished business, things to explain to each other. And I'm not sure if there are good explanations for all that happened... I think trust will have to be rebuilt... that could take some time... but, to use your phrase, "if you're still willing," I would still like to talk about a future together... isn't that why you came to me when you were 13? - you were angry and thought that I had rejected you. I didn't reject you, but I was just a young boy who didn't think at all and didn't understand what you were saying... and so, if you're still willing, I'm finally ready to talk about it now...
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