5/16/07 - Response Letter

A response letter to a friend who wrote me in response to the last blog. I took out names for now out of respect, since I haven't asked his permission to publicize our conversation. I'll stick them back in if he has no problem with it:

______________________________________________

hey _____, thanks so much for your insight, i'm very excited to eventually get a chance to talk to you about such things.

I definitely fluctuate between defining my own identity and disassociating from it. I've come to think of it as a game, but just like winning and losing in games, if I feel like the story I'm unfolding has hit a wall, I start to get frustrated. I am a sore loser.

It's really, really helpful to be reminded to focus on the things I know, but have turned a blind eye to (again). I thank you for that.

As far as conclusions go, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing. I have an intuition that there's no answer to our most provoking questions, and the pursuit of such only reveals more questions. So it must be about the inquiry, and the joy and sorrow of it.

I'm okay with that. I just forget I'm okay with that, sometimes.

I empathize with what you went through with _______. The last person I was with (for most of college) lied to me several times about some seriously painful things before I literally couldn't bear to speak to him anymore.

It was a terrible time, my heart was completely broken, I felt my trust for other humans desintegrating, and with every new chance I gave him thrown in my face, I felt more and more like a fool.

Those kinds of things force you to question every little thing about yourself, whether it's reasonable or not. You wonder what was not good enough about you for the other person, what you might have done better, why the person they're with now is so superior to you in quality. You question the nature of human interaction, and whether or not it's meaningful at all. And so on.

Most importantly though, relationship aside, it forces you to look at yourself, and really try and see who it is you really are- the truth of it. Heartbreak might have been the most illuminating thing that has ever happened to me.

Here's a little thing that my life has brought to my attention recently, that I feel compelled to share with you for whatever reason-

- I thought for the better part of the last year and a half, when I was mostly solitary and healing, that I might never be able to trust or love again, or that past events had damaged my ability to do so. Since I've been in this city, I realized that things like that are never beyond our reach or lost to us.

The broken-hearted have had to peel away layers, and have become wiser for it. They realize that love and trust are not for everybody, and everything.

They are gifts that we give to this world, to those who bring it out in us. When we meet those people, no matter how much we've been hurt, there's no way in the world we will be able to help it. We can't help the loving, and the trusting.

I didn't know, but it pours out of you when you find someone worthy of it. I've been quite surprised, actually... it happens when you least expect it... and I know that sounds cliche, but there's truth to it, that's how it becomes cliche in the first place.

I understand what you mean about being comfortable floating in limbo. I have been quite comfortable, and happy-

- I know that I'm on the brink of something, though. Like I'm on the edge of a waterfall, and the floating is about to be pulled out from under me and something wild is about to happen. It's excitement and nervousness, is what it is. The other side to the floating, if I were to be taoist about it.

And yes, your words were a great aid. They came just at the right time. (namaste)

Josephine