Lessons

Our lost loves teach us invaluable lessons. As we navigate the course of our lives, we begin to understand them as useful experiences: Agonizingly painful, useful lessons.

We fuss, we moan, we remain stuck. But in the end life moves us along generally whether we want it to or not, and we are forced to view the loss through a rear view mirror as it recedes from view. The road we travel on begins to make a bend, a curve is thrown and suddenly the love we clung to isn’t even visible anymore and the viola! The business of life takes over and we start to heal.

The once tender details of face and expression begin to blur. Their voices obscured by the crunch of tires on a drive way, the sounds of the street traffic, our own braying at the moon is drown by the boisterous children in the train platform. We struggle to hang on but our tears have misted our vision, and the lapse of time strains any clear recollection.

We start to question our own sanity: how did I drive them away? Why did they lie? What made them behave in such a scandalous way? The questions are meaningless really, as they simply loop through our heads like a bad jingle in the elevator, the humming of a dementia patient waiting for the return of a long dead spouse.

We thrash between hatred and unconditional love. Longing and disdain. Compassion and contempt. There is no middle ground. No neutrality…