The Comedown

I'm having a comedown. Moments ago I was flying high, literally. 20,000 feet above the earths soil staring at clouds and snow capped mountains, staring at the expanse of the Grand Canyon and pondering its history. I was also pondering the most magnificent of weddings I had just attended and how moved I was by the magic of the bride and groom.

She, my best friend for the last four years, a tride and true, a person, like a my person person. Like one of my people. He, a man I have known and loved from a distance who now I get to love up close. A man who has become my best friends best friend. her partner. Their marrying was one of real life fairy tale.

Sweet, timeless, true. Every moment, from the improvised vows to his hand on her neck during the first dance. From the attendants inclusion to the second line seeing the couple off, sending them on their way. Not one inauthentic moment, not one thing not thought of, pure perfection (if perfection was a thing I believed in.)

I even tried to find feelings of jealousy and yearning for my own fairytale as I have at so many other weddings. But I couldn't. Not one damn tear for anything but happiness. Happiness for them and happiness for any two people who had ever entered into the contract of marriage or partnership of any kind. For those who have chosen their avatars because I truly believe that's what marriage/partnership is.

A moment to pick one person, a person who lights you up, a person who. Alex you feel alive, a person who makes you feel seen and heard, a person who is willing to be seen and heard by you fully, one person to serve as the placeholder for all the love that runs through us and out us to be shared with the world. Because let's face it, we can't take the world home with us.

The betrothed wanted us to celebrate love, to celebrate the love that we each are and the love that we each have. And all weekend that was literally all I could do. I fell in love with almost everyone and everything I came across. And when it was time to go, I was ready. I was, as I mentioned, flying high.

Then i found out that those who stayed behind coincidentally (if I believed in coincidence) ran into the couple and got to spend their first day as mr & mrs with, well with mr & mrs. I sat with that information for a moment and slowly felt the familiar feeling come rushing in. Jealousy. There it was. That thing I couldn’t find if you had paid me one day earlier in the bathroom at loose mansion. So I called it out, owned it and carried on.

Except I couldn't seem to carry on. And it was beyond fascinating to see what my brain made this mean. It was beyond fascinating to notice the wonder of every other moment dissolve into the deepest feeling of I must not be enough. Simply because I took a different flight.

I wasn't lucky enough. I must not be a real friend. Probably none of those people actually love me. Because if they did I wouldn't have missed it, I wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't be good for just support and help I'd get to have fun too. If I was important enough these things wouldn't always happen without me. (Mind you, I know none of this is true or even remotely close to what my friends are actually thinking but inside me, for the comedown, they feel very fucking true.)

And I see a pattern here, and I realize there is a gift here for me because even in the comedown this couple have managed to provide me with a space to go deeper in my own connection to loving.

What I realized in this spiral was I don't believe it when you tell me you love me. I don't believe you when you tell me that I look stunning or that I have a beautiful voice. I don't believe you when you say I did a good job or that you genuinely love me. Not unless I've done something for you. Or a lot of something for you. Or given something to you. Then maybe, maybe I'll believe you.

(Parenthetically, I do believe it when you say I'm a good writer but that's because I'm not writing, god is writing through me. Why then, is god not singing through me? Expressing through me? Loving through me? Delicious food for thought…)

The way that mr & mrs were looking at each other was literally  breathtaking and promising to each other that they know their task is to stand on their own and exist in the surplus of their loving. To mirror to each other who they truly are: love. And I know they love me. I know they love everyone on the planet and are choosing to hold that loving in the most sacred space in their marrying.

And I know my work now as I move forward in this world. Somehow I have gotten it all jumbled up. I know how, I was born, and I picked a unique set of circumstances and i have a unique set of lessons to learn from unfurling my so far lifetime. And I can see more clearly than before the ways in which this is jumbled.

I can see at a deeper level how I have not let love in, fully anyway. It's like I keep it at arms length. Like I hold it just so, controlled by what I can provide you, what we can provide each other, not at all existing in the space of just loving. Pure unadulterated unconditional loving. It's strange though, as I feel I can give or participate in unconditional loving OF YOU but when it comes to you of me, I don't buy it.

My spiritual teachers say, how you relate to the issue is the issue, or how you relate to yourself while you are going through the issue is the issue. So I guess the issue here is feeling not good enough, not worthy enough, not lucky enough, not loved enough. I guess the issue here is that I am telling myself, in this stinking thinking, that I am not enough, not worthy enough, not lucky enough to receive your loving.

The issue is there are still places inside of me that have not yet learned, experientially, that that is not how this works. Maybe the issue is that there are parts of me that are still believing love is something to be received. Because there are other parts of me, so many other parts of me that know that to be categorically untrue.

Love is who we are. Love is who I am. Love is who you are.

That's what this whole entire weekend was proof of for me. Undeniably, unquestionably, without doubt. This is why I couldn't find those tears in the bathroom at loose mansion. This is why when I met a handful of attractive taken men this weekend I did not cave inside as I used to. Just because they are “taken” doesn't mean we can not participate in sharing the love that we are together. I can share the love I am with the world and often, so often when I am not in my head, I do.

So to those places that have not yet learned that they are love, that love is not something to be received, it is something to allow, to experience, to breathe in… I will wait for you. I will unconditionally love you and I will continue to, as often as I need to, find the teachable moments and say to you, see?

Do you feel that? Can you touch that light on the inside when you think about your friends face as she smiled at her man? That's love. That's you. Can you touch that tender spot inside that lights up watching the stream in this park in the middle of Santa Monica flow to the duck pond as the ducks play in the water? That place that wants to explode when you think about how many different people there are in the world? That thing that oooozes out of you every time you see a child? That thing you want to share with the entire world?

That's you. And there's actually only one person you are tasked to share that with before all others. It is not a mistake that you are here, god did not put you here by mistake. God puts us nowhere by mistake. Love puts us nowhere by mistake. And same goes for all of those people who told you all of those things. They are not there by mistake either. Love doesn’t make mistakes.  And maybe, just maybe none of those people were ever lying. (Hint: they weren't) maybe you did look stunning, maybe you sounded fantastic, maybe you did do a great job and were incredibly valued, and maybe, maybe you are genuinely loved. For no reason at all other than the fact that you are you. (Hint: you did and you are and you will be forever more)

And I will be here to hold you when you forget that and it hurts. I will be here to dance with you when you remember and I will be here to celebrate the sharing of the love that YOU are with anyone who is lucky enough to share it with you. I will be here when you are flying high, coming down or landing somewhere in between. I will stare at you with eyes of love, mirroring to you who you are and I will hold the sacred place to celebrate that....

For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in remembrance and forgetting, as long as we both shall love….

(dedicated with eternal gratitude to Mr & Mrs. You Know Who You Are...... I LOVE YOU!!!!)