On April 6, 1985 I met a person who changed my life forever. Over the next two decades, we each went through a great deal of turmoil and tragedy, as well as a decent share of joy and ecstasy. Our paths crossed many times and yet they were always somehow divergent. Twenty years after the day we met we find ourselves together, living under the same roof, sharing and building a life together.
I believe in miracles and I believe I have experienced many of them in my life. I also have a different belief in miracles that stands outside the standard, pat definition. Sometimes, even in the face of everything that is rational and sensible, you just have to believe. I've done many things in my life over the past ten years that caused a lot of people to label me as "insane," and yet for me they all meant something, they were all important and they were all very powerful experiences on my life's journey.
I find myself now living in the midst of the greatest miracle of them all. For twenty years I could not bring myself to believe it was possible. At first it was because I did not think I was "good enough," and then, as my life changed, I never thought she would ever stop running away and hiding from me. At the same time, I always believed it mattered too much to give up on, no matter how hard my rational mind told me to give up and move on. Why hold onto this one specific woman when I was now able to enjoy the company of other women, many of them incredible and wonderful in their own right and able to connect with me and share themselves freely with me? It mattered. I was never really sure why, but it mattered. She was The Muse, the love of my life, the person I loved more deeply than anyone else, even though, and in part because she knows how to get under my skin better than anyone else alive.
Some people tell me to be "thankful" and that I was blessed by "someone" up there in the "heavens." My faith teaches me differently. My faith is about learning, about finding yourself and being able to accept others as they are and to give everything you can to everyone you know. When I look at this story of my life, I understand that I had to go through what I went through, that I had to learn what I learned and come to terms with certain elements of myself before this could be possible. I was guided through these lessons, struggles and "tests," but it was necessary for me to go through them and learn from them. If you understood the story of my relationship with The Muse, you would understand that this could not have worked until I became the person I am today. I understand things about her she never shared with me in the past because I've dealt with them before in other women. I've learned to be patient, to be strong and to be giving without tearing myself open in the process. There is much more, but there always is.
Know this. Many people struggle at times in their lives. They are unable to handle situations. They cannot do what they want so badly to do. Things are not working out in a relationship. There are divisions within the family, difficulties that make it seem impossible to heal the wounds caused by those divisions. In so many of these things, it is essential to move forward, to learn where we went wrong and to accept that there may be other roads to follow. Often we learn that we blame another for things that have happened, and we cannot heal until we stop placing blame and accept our role as part of the issue at hand. Sometimes we need to go away. Sometimes we need to let go. The things we truly believe in, those things that are not just a passion or obsession of the day, will always be there in our hearts. A stupid argument is not eternal. The love and the friendship of the people who walked away from each other because of that argument, that is eternal, that is what truly matters.
When a problem or situation cannot be resolved in the present moment, let time be your friend. Patience is a different kind of virtue than forgiveness, but it can be a powerful one. Let things take their course and know that the true course will always remain open to you in some way, even if it is not an obvious or clearly visible way. You will know when the time has come. The time will come when you are ready. Sometimes we think we're ready when we really aren't. Sometimes we don't realize we're ready when we are.
"For patience in samsara brings such things
As beauty, health, and good renown.
Its fruit is great longevity,
The vast contentment of a universal king."
from The Way of the Bodhisattva