The Slackline of Life

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

"Sisters of Mercy" - Leonard Cohen

In any relationship, there can be such a precarious, hovering balance between feeling trapped and feeling abandoned. Walking life’s slackline and holding onto love for a lifetime, one must somehow be independent of the person who is loved, and yet remain connected. And the idea that you can control what happens to you is an illusion—all you can control is how you respond. So it boils down to a series of choices between love and fear—fear that the one I love will turn away from me or trap me; abandon me or take away my freedom.

You can only choose love over fear if you can find it in yourself to believe in love, and love can seem so ephemeral (“if you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned”). I remember once many years ago a co-worker and friend of mine tried to talk to me about the “L” word--the central importance of love in all our lives. It was as if she spoke another language—I wasn’t ready to hear those ideas yet.

Fear and love aren’t opposites, but I think of them together; one is the answer to the other. Stuffing fear doesn’t work, it just creates a smoldering volcano of feelings. I do know that when I’m feeling emotional pain and I stop to focus on the present moment, accepting whatever I find in that moment, I am immediately more peaceful.

An interesting twist is that sometimes strong feelings of love generate fear in me—fear of losing what makes me most happy. My life partner creates beautiful flower gardens, and I’m torn between enjoying the beauty he’s created, and fearing a day when he may no longer be able to do it. In fact, when he was not well for awhile last year and the flowers went unplanted and untended, that was one of my greatest sorrows and my fear was reinforced.

When I struggle against the truth that nothing lasts forever and all things must pass, I feel fear and a terrible grief; I lose the present and the chance to enjoy what I do have. Remembering to be right here, right now and love the moment helps – “nothing that is real can be destroyed”—do I understand that idea finally?

For myself, the fear of abandonment is the greatest—I mould myself to fit the desires of the person I’m with “because it is easier,” I tell myself, but really because I am secretly afraid they’ll turn away from me given half a chance. In truth, even strong (and quite uncharacteristic) outbursts of rage on my part have resulted in shockingly few changes in other people. People change only when they are ready, not as a result of anything I do.

Love does have indirect influence—the presence of love, asking nothing in return, can bring peace and comfort to those around you—I remember this from parenting challenges with teenagers a few years ago. I have a feeling the biggest influence was my love for them, keeping the lines of communication open so that whatever else happened they knew I loved them.

The lessons all seem to weave together to make the pattern. The path is much more spacious each time I choose love, not fear.