I guess I am especially sensitive right now because I am preparing to leave where I have lived for five years for a new place, a new home, and a new life. I know that there will be some sadness as I say farewell to the state of Ohio, where I have lived most of the past 12 years... but I must leave. I have to leave, even if it means a whole lotta hurt.
That may not sound like a big deal, but you have to understand why this IS such a big deal for me. In order for you to grasp the significance, I am going to peel back a layer of my heart and let you see something that has been hidden for a long time...
You see, it's about the power of love. And for a long, long time, I didn't know love. I didn't know love and I didn't know how to love. I couldn't love anyone if I tried, because I couldn't love me.
I dreamed about love for years and years, but never believed it would or could be mine. I was too ashamed to even try to express love, because ever since I was a young boy I had been taught that what I considered true love was wrong. Not only was it wrong, it was unnatural, it was depraved and in a way it was evil. I naively believed what I was taught, and so I believed it would lead me to Hell. I thought it would tear me apart from all of my loved ones forever and so... well, I thought it was stupid to believe that I could try to love anyone.
So I didn't. I stayed in the dark corners of the closet and kept to myself. I pretended to know what it was like to love someone... but the truth was, I didn't love anyone, not even me. And for years, I was like the singer of the Foreigner song, "I Wanna Know What Love Is"... And for years, I cried myself to sleep. And for years, those temptations to hurt myself, to end my misery lurked in every corner. After my first suicide attempt, I had to force myself to stay away from guns. For many years I refused to learn how to drive a car because I was afraid I would use it to kill myself, and maybe inadvertently kill someone else in the process. I had to stay away from the edges of bridges... I did many things to keep myself from taking my own life because I was too, too fragile to force back the depression and take the reins of my own life.
Until recently. The past year or so has been a huge path leading me away from the old, and pulling me closer to my true destiny. And it's because of love.
I feel like I am on the cusp of something big, and I am. I mean, I have taken many great strides over the years. For example, when I graduated from college, I left the U.S. and went abroad. I spent a total of eight years abroad, and there, I was able to re-imagine myself, and get rid of a lot of the 'old Rolf' that kept me down. I was able to create a new me, or at least let the positive side of me get some exposure to the light, and the result was that a much different, a much more confident person emerged.
About seven years after coming back from Japan, I had another experience that showed me the things I had been taught by church-going folk, including so-called friends and family, were all lies. I came to understand then that I had been deluded and deceived into thinking that I was some horrible person. But I'm not. I was just confused, but once the truth was clarified for me, I was able to tackle some internal issues from a brand new angle, and I was able to actually come out of the closet and start interacting with people on a regular basis.
Then, about five years ago, a new stage of evolution began. Even though I had been free to explore my new freedoms from a new vantage point, I really hadn't realized the potential.... until I met David. We did not do a lot of things at first, but I do recall sitting in a restaurant, and later in my car, during our first encounter, just talking to David, and knowing that I really, really liked him, and we shared so many common interests, and if I ever had the chance I would gladly see him again someday....As the cliche goes, I guess you could say it was love at first sight.
Over the years, David has pulled me up out of the darkness of loneliness, and enticed me to try other things. I have experienced more with David in the past five years than I did in the previous fifteen, and I have grown a lot more mature even as I fell more and more in love with him.
And I realized that it was time to say good-bye... not to David, but to the old me, the one that cried himself to sleep because he was lonely, the one that moped about while putting on a happy face because he hated the questions from co-workers about his personal life, the one that looked at other couples and gave them a cold eye... You see, David is funny, cheerful, positive, outgoing, sensitive, caring, and honestly, quite loving.
In order to be with David, I realized I had to quit those things that kept me apart from him. I had to make some hard decisions... I realize that I need to let go of quite a few things. I realize that those things that once seemed to be so precious to me had actually become a hindrance... I realize now that the immaterial things I share with David-- time, laughter, love-- are far more precious with each passing day.
And the truth is, love does make the world go 'round. It can make you or break you, just like Isaac says. It can make you say or do some crazy things. And for love, I will say good-bye to Ohio and the people and things and places here... so I can say hello or good morning or hey or whatever to my love face-to-face each and every morning. And I really don't believe I will miss Ohio all that much.
No comments:
Post a Comment