The Family (Or most of them)

The Family (Or most of them)
The Family

September 9, 2006

TROUBLE

TROUBLE IS A BIG WORD.

WITH POTENTIALLY BIG CONSEQUENCES.

UGLY, HURTING CONSEQUENCES.

TO YOURSELF, BUT ALSO TO PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT -- LOVELY INDIVIDUALS YOU NEVER INTENDED TO HARM, BUT WHO CAN NEVER BE FULLY PROTECTED FROM THAT PAIN.

TROUBLE.

TROUBLE can be the mundane stuff we have to deal with every day, like plugged toilets...


OR FINDING yourself in a rather precarious position and discovering, due to unforseen circumstances, that you're completely out of your element and having to figure out how you're going to get yourself out of it...



OR MAYBE, in a fit of poor judgment and caught in a brain cramp of bravado, trying something that maybe you shouldn't have and having one of those DOH! moments...and realizing you've bitten off more than you can chew.


SOMETIMES, trouble can be manufactured purposely, with the most devious thoughts in mind and without any regard for the feelings or future of the unfortunate victim of that deviousness.


BUT THE TROUBLE I'm thinking about today is the trouble with love, or at least the precarious process of trying to arrive at that state of bliss between two adults with every hope of being together.

THE HOPE of fitting together like a hand in a glove, of knowing at the depths of their souls that he or she is THE ONE, of feeling so light as a feather together.

And the big step of taking the risk to open up and to put their hearts on the line to make that happen, of putting themselves on the railway tracks in order to pave the road to what they can only hope can be.

And despite the best of intentions from both of those individuals, how the jittery journey to getting there can end in extreme pain, often for one at the expense of the other.

I'VE BEEN thinking of one person all week and how that person must feel, knowing the huge risk she had bravely taken -- with no guarantees, nothing other than a belief and a hope -- was not rewarded.

RISK AND REWARD.

It's such a cruel concept, but unfortunately it's the way of the world. If we don't take risks, there's no possibility of reward. But taking the risk can come back and bite us in the ass, and IN THE HEART.

FOR EVERYONE. Few of us escape either side of that equation.

The old saying is, "Where there's a WILL, there's a WAY." But WANT has to be there too. And WISH. And other wacko complicated variables that just have to WORK. It just has to WORK.

BOTH have to adhere to those first four W's for the fifth to happen, for it to WORK. It's extremely sad when it doesn't, and I have felt like a cad at times this week that it didn't.

BUT SOMETIMES, it just doesn't work. Sometimes, all the hopes and expectations and dreams and grandiose plans and loveliness and intense physical relations and great logic and commonality aren't enough.

Sometimes, it's just the way it is. It takes two. And it defies explanation, as much as we all want an explanation.

Sometimes, there just IS no explanation. That's the toughest thing to take...never really knowing why.

And wishing you did.

So you could tell that person how much you wish it had worked out...and that they are a wonderful person, even if it didn't.

21 comments:

  1. Love - or the quest for it - is painful in every way.It literally hurts your heart regardless of the outcome.Ow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd rather jump off the building than sit on the sidelines.

    ReplyDelete
  3. White Forest:

    OK, thanks.

    Lee:

    Hmmmmm...if that's your feeling. I hope your hurt dissipates at some point. Really do.

    MJ:

    Uh-huh. Otherwise, might as well just jump in the casket right now, I figure.

    ReplyDelete
  4. oooooookay...
    hence i remain a coward!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Angel:

    No, No, No Girl!

    I've been the coward too, and with good reason, and for a time. Been on both sides, like anybody.

    When you're wounded, you have to let yourself heal. Sometimes people never heal.

    Or they've healed superficially, but the pain lingers and they never want to get hurt again.

    But forever? Just askin'...Just sayin'...I guess it's whatever floats your boat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. So do you think that it DOESN'T hurt? That sounds almost like an accusation, doesn't it? - but it's just a question :). What I was trying to say before that if you really feel something, it hurts.And you wouldn't have it any other way - but the things we put ourselves through...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm sitting here like a dill now thinking whether to respond again or not because I realised that you were posting at the same time - and covered it.hahaha.Oh, might as well...

    ReplyDelete
  8. what an idiot! hehe.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh my -- the words coupled with the music make me just want to cry.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Lee:

    Please don't get me wrong, it's not my place or intent to disagree with what you feel, because that is YOUR precious right.

    I'm just trying to engage in what I hope is helpful, healthy debate about something we all face.

    Of course a love lost, no matter how, is among the most painful experiences in our lives.

    It has paralysed me at times, for long times, dreary, crying, why-the-hell periods of despair and anguish.

    ...And I have paralysed others or hurt them deeply -- as described in this post about a woman I care deeply about -- by having to say what I know: that this can't work.

    I know, as you do, that it doesn't just hurt to be rejected, it can numb your feelings beyond belief and freeze you to your core.

    All I'm saying is despite the pain of being rejected, or in this case rejecting someone you care about, it doesn't always have to be that way.

    It's like the search for the Holy Grail of closeness and intimacy. Clearly, it's not easy.

    There's a kazillion songs out there (Love Hurts, That's the Way of the World, the Power of Love, ad nauseum) that lament the anguish of love.

    But the beauty of it when it happens -- even with the hurtin' hearts that it sometimes brings -- is worth the journey, I figure.

    You're no dill, nor an idiot. I agree with your comment about the stuff we put ourselves through...but also that we wouldn't have it any other way.

    Andrea:

    Sorry, kiddo, hope it hasn't wrecked your Sunday morning...

    ReplyDelete
  11. haha. What I meant about being an idiot was the fact that I'd posted a comment at virtually the same time as you and was raving on with crap and you'd covered the gist of it anyway as I discovered after I posted it - so an accidental idiot you could say. With this love stuff - I must say that the time in my life when I was truly " in love" - and it was wonderful - there was still a sense of...I'll never know what it was...but your heart aches with it, maybe because it's full? That sounds silly, but maybe someone will know what i'm talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lee:

    You mean ("but your heart aches with it, maybe because it's full?"), it feels so great that you fear it can't last?

    Doesn't sound silly, regardless of whether I've understood what you meant or not.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yes - that was it. A feeling that it was too good to be true and that it wouldn't last. That thing where you can sit in silence with a person and feel as though you're inside their mind and vice versa - that there's a cord binding you. That creates an ache.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lee:

    Sorry, bear with me here as I try to understand...

    The feeling that it was SO great and that it was too good to be true...created a fear greater than the joy of experiencing it?

    Isn't that like hopping onto a roller-coaster and not enjoying the exhilarating experience because you knew it was going to end?

    Why wouldn't you just revel in the joy of the moment instead of worrying whether it would end?

    That feeling of being inside the other's mind, a cord and connection between you...

    That's what everyone longs for. But is it necessarily going to always end? And is an ache inevitable?

    ReplyDelete
  15. No, of course it's not always going to end :).It was just what I experienced - I guess it's not going to be like that for everyone.It was just this feeling that I had - women's intuition if you will - that it would not continue .Just thought of something - you know if you see the perfect sunset and it's so beautiful that it gives you an ache? That's the only way I can describe it.I'm talking bollocks :).

    ReplyDelete
  16. love is a gamble..it may or may not work.

    Keshi.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Lee:

    Yes. And the deep hurt of losing "The Big One", the one you really wanted, can leave lasting scars so deep that they never heal.

    So deep that they make you gun-shy about the next relationship, and the next...

    Keshi:

    A gamble indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Why can't you
    be more like Endicott?

    ReplyDelete
  19. WW, yes, yes, I quite agree...Ruben Dario, the famous Nicaraguan poet, wrote a book called "Una sed de ilusiones infinita," which translates (very roughly) as "An infinite thirst for illusions." I think that's one of the things we need to make these things WORK...N'est ce pas?

    ReplyDelete
  20. HE:

    OK, I'm putting that on my list to play on my next post, just for your benefit! Arse.

    Carm:

    Ah, so you think it's an elusive dream, huh? A Quazy Quest? Maybe it is all an illusion...

    ReplyDelete

If you choose to use anonymous to comment, it is only fair that I reserve the right to obliterate your comment from my blog.