Lost and Found – 332

I think this will be my last soul-searching one for a while. Everyone can take a breather.

As a writer, I am always imaging different scenarios and conversations, and at one point I had imagined a conversation between a girl and an athlete who had suffered a debilitating injury, where he was bed-ridden and would have a long road to recovery. In the scene, she told him that sometimes we lose something that is so much a part of us that we’re not even sure who we are anymore. But we will get it back, and then it will be even better, maybe because we have earned it.

The thing is, everything that comes out, is coming out of you, and it comes from somewhere.

If I was defining myself in the past, I probably would have gone for the intelligence part. I asked a college friend about it once, thinking that he would say intelligence, but he went for my niceness. Those can both be valid, but I had never realized how much my cheerfulness was a part of me until it was gone. It wasn’t just that all my hopes and dreams had been destroyed—it was kind of like Gina was destroyed too. Even when the worst pain subsided, and I was just left with this dull ache of depression, I was so far from the person I used to be. It was something I had sort of known; maybe it’s just that I had no concept of what it would be like to lose that resilience.

However, even though I knew that I was generally cheerful, I also knew that about twice a year I would just have a meltdown, where for a few days I would be gloomy and stormy, and it would all focus on how no one really cared about me. I knew I was being unreasonable, and that no one was being any different on a given day than they had been the previous week, but that was the problem. They never cared and eventually the ongoing frustration would build up and spill over.

Even though I could see that, I never grasped the real issue. I had a core belief that I could not be loved, and even though I was very functional, and had friendships and hobbies and good times, that hole in my heart was always gnawing away at me, until it would spill over about twice a year.

Having seen that and faced it for what it was, including the fact that it was a lie, I don’t have these episodes anymore. There are still times when things just feel like too much, or when events will make me sad, but it is a completely different thing. My happiness is more authentic now, more real, and more mine.

I have a friend who was diagnosed with MS about two years ago, but before that she would have spells of sickness and weakness that were not explained. She was also a tough, strong girl who could throw around heavy loads and do rural Idaho proud. That took a beating as she had to learn to deal with her illness, and it is an issue that will not go away completely, and yet she is still able to do a lot during the good times, and is so capable, and the only thing she expresses is gratitude.
She also had a fiancé once whom she needed to break up with. And I remember us talking about that once, and even though at the time she was still single she told me, “Gina, I have found so much love since letting him go—more than I could have imagined.” She had even found romantic love, and found more of that later. It was reassuring, knowing that it is okay to let go.

I guess my point is that the deepest pains will be tied to the greatest joys, and bring the greatest blessings. We wouldn’t even understand what joy felt like if we felt no pain. If you’re reading this, and you’re hurting, the only thing I can say is that you’re not dead yet. There’s time to heal. There’s still time for your dream to come true, or for a new dream to take its place.

I’m going to close with some poetry, which I first heard in the movie “Sense and Sensibility”. Marianne had previously been associated with Shakespearean sonnet 116, that love is not love that does not persist, even in the face of losing love. Later, she has to take a broader view, and finds happiness with someone else, and they read this from Spenser’s The Faerie Queen.

What though the sea with waves continuall
Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all...
Nor is the earth the lesse, or loseth aught.
For whatsoever from one place doth fall,
Is with the tide unto another brought...
For there is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought ...