PAIN V (THE FIFTH IN THE SERIES)

Heartache. Heartache is probably the most difficult pain to resolve and melt away. We store it for lifetimes and I mean lifetimes without respite. When we meet the person with whom we have had prior, soul-learning relationships, we know we have to enter in, in spite of the fact that heartache is lurking in the shadows, unspeakably. We enter in with the hope that this time, it will go well. It doesn’t because there is more learning to do and this person, this person we love and hate at the same time or just long for is with us because we need this person to teach us something very important. He/she pulls and stretches us emotionally, sends us to our limits and tests our reserves. It is a karmic relationship, full of deep, deep love.

I knew the minute I met my husband (now ex-husband) that something was off—he didn’t feel new to me, I could almost speak the words he was about to say in our first and second conversations. They felt predictable. And I felt sad about us almost from the time his hand was placed in mine at the party we’d both gone to. Hello, I don’t know you but I feel I know you, is that possible?

Karmic relationships are notable from the point of view of the circumstances in which they arise. In my case, I had gone to this birthday party with a friend who had tried to introduce me to my husband months before. My husband had declined to meet me because he was in a relationship and was not looking for anyone new. I was disappointed at the rebuttal and soon thereafter resolved to buy a condo and make a nest for myself sans mate. The day I moved into my condo I went to the party (reluctantly) with my friend. As the party progressed my friend spotted my husband across the room and pointed him out to me. I watched him with some fascination as he chatted up people and ate his way through a small plate of food. Suddenly the birthday girl (who I didn’t know) was yanking me out of my seat and putting my hand into the hand of the man I had been staring at, saying, “go dance.” We obeyed.

The trouble with heartache is it never leaves a karmic relationship. At best, it fades a little each time you try again, until it is finished. Ours was not finished. For twenty years we tried to understand each other, challenging our very basic notions of who we were and who we were to each other. It taught me to stand up for myself. It taught me to be who I believed I was, no matter what the consequence. It almost killed me. That little bit of understanding allowed me to grow into the best of me, the best of what I have been. For him, I will never know what he was intended to learn, it is in fact none of my business, really. I only know he had plenty of heartache in the mix, too. When we meet again, in another lifetime, we will perhaps be better lovers, better friends, and our hearts will be all the better for it.

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