Before we left on this journey M and I both packed our bags with things we might need along the way. M packed a flashlight. Now you might think, as I did, that was to light the way. A flashlight, what a great idea we'd be able to see the way for the whole trip. Maybe not the entire path all at once but we'd be able to see what the next step would bring. But she's been on these trips with me before. In fact her whole life has been a journey in the dark, never knowing where we are going, never knowing what's next. Just trusting me that we'd have what we needed to get by. No she said, the flashlight is so we can always see each other and find one another no matter how dark the night.
Me, I packed Karma. I've learned to trust Karma. Most think of Karma as a punisher, something to fear. How many times have you heard, 'that's bad karma'. But that's not what she is. She's just honest, all the time, it really is quite simple. If you do good things, good things happen. If you do bad things, bad things happen. That's it nothing more, nothing less. There's only one problem, she has no sense of time, none. Bad things you do today might not cause bad things to happen until years later.
But why pack Karma you say. Well she's a powerful friend if you give her your complete trust. See, once you trust her it relieves you of your duty to judge, yourself or others. Without her, your forced to protect yourself from bad that's done to you. Someone cuts you off in traffic, without her you have to get mad, to honk your horn, to raise your finger, to let the other drivers know you won't put up with that. But trust Karma, she knows. If the driving was done with malicious thought it's just a matter of time before that driving causes an accident with $1,000's of dollars spent. See Karma relieves me of the duty to get even, to settle the score, to make things right. I know she's there, I know she sees things I can't.
I've had this struggle my entire live. Because of these struggles I've received my share of hate, direct and indirect. Hate hurts. It hurts more then most know. I've learned that to respond to hate with hate just causes more hate. That's what Karma does. But she's shown me through the years that the hate given to me is really kept with the one giving it. They boil with it, they surround themselves with it. Karma relieves me of the duty to fix them, of evening the score, of fighting with them. That's what Karma does for a living and she's really good at it. See most of the time she's my friend.
So we pack our bags, we're ready for the journey, excited in a way. But before we even take that first step, M starts dragging. A series of things really. Her work starts to become tiresome, R has some issues that need a parent's hand, she has what could become a serious health issue. All this right before the holidays. The holidays have always been hard on her. See we left our families on the east coast 25 years ago and never looked back. She misses what the holidays might have been had our families been different. Plus add to all of these new issues, me. You 've got to admit the path from man to woman is huge. It's a 11 on a scale of 10.
She's suffering. I can see it. I tell myself that throughout our entire 30 years together I've always been able to make her happy. I know I've been given the keys to her heart. I know that if I put the work into it, I can lift her up, I can fill her with the love she deserves. But now as we start this journey I can't. I keep giving love, support, energy, and she's still suffering. All the sudden, not even one step into the darkness, she's worn out, tired, and cold.
I've said before, the E steals your self confidence. I know that the heaviest thing on her plate is me. The E has convinced me I'm the one stealing her happyness from her. But at the same time E has given me a gift, it's given me an openness, a sense of hope that I've never had before. It was never hard to love M, from the very first day it was easy. But I didn't always work at it, didn't always put the little effort it took into it. The E has given me the gift to love freely, to open up and expose my heart to her, to give her love everyday, expecting nothing in return.
A few weeks ago, we were able to take a small vacation from her work. She had a few days of nothing. Funny thing happened. Her work environment shifted for the better, R is doing much better now, the health scare turned out to be minor and is completely resolved. Me, well the 11 on the scale to 10 is still an 11.
We were only a few steps into our journey. It was dark, cold and wet. She reached for that flashlight she packed so that she could see me, find comfort in my strength, take shelter in my arms. But, the devil stole that flashlight out of our bag. There are to be no lights on our way, no shelter from the cold. Those are the rules. The flashlight is gone.
Karma though, she is still my friend. I trusted her, I trusted that if I could keep giving M my love every day, that love would come back.
The flashlight is gone, the path is still dark, very dark. But I can feel her hand in mine, and a funny thing, there's just enough light to see a smile on her face.
