the bearable lightness of being
the sliding doors of our lives
Unbearable Lightness of Being was my favorite book in my 20s. Read so many times I lost count. The cover is partially ripped on my shelf now. Not reading it since, Yet some words + lines reverberate, Playing pinball within the vertebrae, The foreshadow of my very own dance between the light and dark. Light and heavy The soul questions What is Love and Art The sketch we start And stop The foghorn Was my only light Some days
"A single metaphor can give birth to love." I have always thought about how he describes eyes upon us: "We all need someone to look at us." "One infinite and anonymous eyes." "Two to be known by many eyes." "Three constantly before the eyes of someone they love." "Fourth, the imaginary eyes of those who aren't present- the rarest- the dreamers." The rarest of the dreamers.
I lost my first copy of this book in college. I made the mistake of letting someone borrow it who never returned it. The promise of a person who keeps a copy of your favorite book. And never ever makes it right, Even though he says he will. This one action was the message of almost all the actions to follow. He never stopped disappointing me, And that felt very heavy. We only spoke again, and I gave him another chance because he knocked on the door of death. The death, Of me wanting it to work, He didn't die, But we did. "But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave." I wonder sometimes about fate. Things that are meant for us. Things we must live through to learn. Things that came before us. And after us, And will again. And our liberation from the trauma. The ones we lived through. The ones where the younger child within us tantrums until we listen. And those transcribed in our genes. The same scenario ground hogs until we heal it. The rough draft over and over until, The choose your own adventure book moments we get again and again, For a lifetime. Our ancestors before, They tell us they are with us. Walking the curves and bumps of the sidewalks before us. When we close our eyes, We live in the city of ancestors. In my pores, In tears, In joy, In pain, And forever in my healing. "And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?" How we meet people The meet-cutes we get with every type of person not just the rom-com variety. “We will meet the people we need to meet, and love whom we need to love.”
A recipe of 1) destiny 2) providence 3) timing 4) magic 5) lots of detours 6) TBD 7) accidents 8) and chance Words not yet created to describe it. We have failed to Define Translations of The sliding doors Of our lives What is Sliding Doors Theory? (see namesake movie trailer below)
"Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost."
There are landmarks I do believe in my life I almost lost myself.
Those streams crossed with wobbly and painful rocks slipping.
and I stayed standing only barely.
What would have happened if I hadn't moved across the country after I started having panic attacks? Would my life have stayed in the same hour radius for all of my days? What if I didn't force myself on planes, trains, and a new city where I knew no one? (disclaimer therapy a combo of some of these and sometimes all of these ---short + long term medicine, exercise, acupuncture, EMDR, somatic work, CBD, l-theanine, gaba, magnesium has been used then + since as needed) This one choice did change my life-- opening things up in every realm of my life, kicking off a 3-city tour (living in each) on the other coast. And doing things scared is sometimes the only way. Even still- like me sharing this and you reading it right now. What would have happened if I hadn't stopped drinking as much? I am so proud of myself. I haven't had a hangover in years--a lot of years. I lost so many Sundays to staying in bed unable to move. Kneeling before the toilet. Drinking in the work hard play hard taglines so normalized. You don't even know where your inherited alcoholic bones are leading you. Or what you are running from. More people in my family (both sides) struggle with alcoholism (it is a disease not a choice) than do not. And the majority of my immediate family. The cause of death for too many. If you ever held a death certificate of someone you came from with these words. It will break you. And beg of you. To not lose yourself to it too. What would have happened if I married someone, thinking they would change? My father said to me, "No one puts on a marriage hat on and becomes someone else—you must accept that person today as the person forever." He still has some of the best one-liners, And advice. Stopping the momentum. Of the next stop on the train. Allowing the tide of the ring we talked about, and the event take us places not meant for us. Way far away from where we started losing the sand landmark, Of my own home. Knowing there was a missing piece-- A hole.
My life Might have been a bad country song in a kitchen somewhere of me singing over the water and the dishes letting the water run until it floods. Or maybe singing even a good country song. (thanks, Reba-enjoy this old school music video) "She's done what she should, should she do what she dares? She doesn't want to leave, she's just wonderin', is there life out there?"
"Chance and chance alone has a message for us. "Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us." We lived in the same city. In the same neighborhood. For years. We went to the same bars, grabbing the slices closer to sunrise than sunset, walked the same city blocks, rode the same subway lines, befriended the same folks in the bodegas, said hello to the same coffee guys on the corner grabbing those blue cups and running to the subway hoping to catch it, sat in the same lines with all the school kids to grab soft serve, laid in the same grass in the park on those hot days when everyone goes, and somewhere in the sea of people for the Shakespeare in the Park since a friend got a ticket for you, those special concerts, or just a street performance. Two planets orbiting around each other. Later when I moved far, far away. How did we both end up on the same beach in the same country in the same week in the same year at the same time during my first time doing solo travel and first time leaving the country in many years? Only to realize it when I was already at the airport, ready to leave. And only many, many years later, the happenstance of having someone in common reconnect us now. Someone I met only because of chance. Because someone cancelled an appointment in 2021 when they started letting us have in- person (with masks) appointments again. A planetary conjunction. Some things are meant to be, Even though they aren't sure in what ways quite yet. Coincidences nod Nudges wonder Chance tries us again.
