Cori

I heard a short while ago that someone I once cared for very deeply said I was “cold-hearted” and “not nice”.  I think I let it bother me for about a day or so and then I chose to let it go.  It dawned on me that I could either let this person’s perception of me define who I was and ruin every day of my life, or I could choose to let it go and be as happy and joyful as possible regardless.  I have since realized that how a person thinks or feels about me is really none of my business and the more I try to make it mine the more unhappy I become.  Everyone has their own perception of everyone else just as every person has his or her own story.  I decided from that point on to prove to myself – and no other – that I am truly not a cold-hearted, mean person.  I chose then, and I choose now, as often as  I can remember, to be a person whom I can respect and live a life of which I can be proud.  How others choose to interpret my being is their problem, not mine.

I re-organized all of my photos on my computer from the last year.  Most of them were of you; were of us.  

In my anger, I try to remember the joy I felt when I loved you.  And when I remember that joy, I try to remember my anger.  Every time I go through a wave of memories, I realize another layer of sadness that I hadn’t recognized before.  It’s hard to feel a different reason for my sorrow.  It’s so painful finding another reason to feel hurt, betrayed, abandoned, deceived.  Yes, that’s how I feel when I think of you.

Last night, I watched Eat Pray Love and of course I wept.  I missed you.  The movie responded saying, “Then miss him.  Send him light and love every time you think of him… and then let it go.”  The more I watched, the more I realized that it wasn’t just you that I missed - it was the thought of you.  The idea of you.  I miss the man I thought you were; the man you claimed you were and wanted to be.  I miss all of the hopes and dreams I thought we had together.  Traveling, seeing the world, living abroad, being adventurous, having a family - those were all things I thought you wanted with me.  I thought you were willing to fight to have all of that with me.  It’s why I loved you so much and why I was able to envision a family and a future with you.  I thought I was worth the fight for you.  

How do I send you light and love when all I really want to send you is my anger and pain?  How do I just let all of that go?

Someone mentioned contrast tonight in our meditation and how as humans we physically need to experience contrast in our physical beings in order to appreciate what our body experiences every day.  I started to think to myself that maybe that was what we were to each other: Contrast.  Did the contrast between our relationship and your upbringing, who I was and who your family wanted for you cause you realize that you prefer something other than me?  Was it that hard for you?  I thought being with you was a challenge with potential; how was I supposed to know that all you felt was misery?  

But I was miserable too.  I guess now I’m happy. 

Am I happy? 

No.  I admit that I am content, that I am excited for my future and the new opportunities that Life has laid out before me.  But in all of that excitement, I am still so sad knowing that I no longer have you in my life to share it with.  I thought I had found my life partner when I found you.  I thought I found someone who was willing to accept me as his equal.  I guess it’s still hard for me to accept that what I really found was the ultimate catalyst to my transformation. 

I was not yet who I was supposed to be when I met you.  The Universe knew that.  I guess it’s a hard truth to swallow that maybe you were nothing more than another stepping stone to my destiny. 

I accept the pain that comes with this realization.  I accept it as though I had chosen it. 

I did.  I chose you.  

I loved you.  It’s so hard to let you go. 

Yesterday, you were my future.

Today, you’re in my past.

I now wonder if you were ever truly present with me.

It’s been exactly a month now.  

I try to quiet my mind at times, but it keeps going.  I suppose it’s an attempt to keep me from remembering that deep down I am still sad.  But then there are moments when I am able to silence it and embrace all of what I’m feeling.  When that happens, the tears that come out are mixed between sorrow and joy.  

I am sad.  Of course I am sad. But it’s hard to hold on to sadness and anger when I realize how far I’ve come in one month.  A month ago, I couldn’t stop crying.  A month ago, I couldn’t eat.  A month ago I wasn’t sleeping.  I was in a state of crisis and diagnosed with all three phases of insomnia.  Now, I am almost back to myself again.  

Maybe not my self before I met you, but a different version.  

There are so many things I want to tell you.  I want to tell you that the band who covered “Somebody That I Used To Know” on one guitar - remember that video you loved and that we thought was so awesome? - has a new single out that I listen to all of the time.  It reminds me of you.  I want to tell you that I’ve been talking to my grandmother every week and started to see her in a new light and that I am slowly mending my relationship with my mother.  I want to tell you, not to impress you or to hear you tell me you’re proud of me.  I want to tell you because I don’t think I would be doing those things if you hadn’t let me go.  And then I remember that you let me go at all… and so I can’t tell you any more.  

Yes, I am still sad that I lost someone so important in my life, that I went from talking to you every day and telling you that I loved you to not hearing from you ever, at all.  But in all of that sorrow, I can’t help but feel joy because I look back and realize how much I’ve changed.  

And then I am grateful.

Cori: Thank you for letting me talk to you, Lola.  I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you as much until now.

Lola: It’s okay.

Cori: I guess I just didn’t know how to talk to you before.

Lola: Why?

Cori: I don’t know.  I guess I didn’t think we had much in common.

Lola: You know, Cori, I have loved you since you were first born and I am always praying to God that you will be successful.  And you will be.

Cori: I hope so.

Lola: No, you will be successful because I always pray to God that you will be successful.  And God always answers my prayers. 

Cori: I love you, Lola.  I’m sorry I took you for granted.  I guess I just didn’t understand where you and Lolo were coming from. 

Lola: It’s okay, Cori.  I love you, too.

Maybe you don’t need to have the same interests with someone to have anything in common with them.  Maybe love really is enough at the end of the day.  

I feel my inner cynic slowly dying as my true Self emerges from the murky depths and I realize that I have so much more to give to people than I have been giving myself credit for.

I’ve been trying to think of the last time you and I laughed together.  No, I mean really laughed together.  Just you and me and a random, funny moment that only you and I could ever understand and laugh about together again for years to come.  

The last memory that comes to my mind was from almost a year ago. We were driving in D.C. to a soccer game.  Someone honked their horn at you and I yelled “Who dat be honkin’?!”  We couldn’t stop laughing about it.

“Why did you sound Caribbean?” you asked me. 

“I don’t know…” 

And we just kept laughing and re-quoting it over and over again until we were in tears.  

That was a good day.  It was a good game.  And afterward, I remember you and I pulled off to the side of the road to just talk and rest because you were so hot.  

I miss those moments.  I miss being able to really laugh with you over something so small and ridiculous (like your Bruce Lee impression fused with Arnold Schwartzenegger).  Knowing that it’s been almost a year since we really shared a moment like that together saddens me so much.  

I’m sorry we weren’t happier together.  I’m sorry that neither of us knew how to see passed our differences and understand one another with compassion.  

I wish we had laughed more together.  I truly am sorry that we didn’t. 

As sad as I am about how it all turned out for us, I have to admit that I am starting to see the beauty amidst all of this chaos.  A strange joy has crept back into my life since you willingly walked out of it and it’s strange how easily things are falling back into place.  I feel more like myself without you and yet, nothing is the same since you.

Do I still cry?  Yes, I do.  When my mind is silent and I allow myself to just be, the grief returns and I must stop to mourn.  When I am still, my emotions become so vivid to me and I can’t help but have a sense of relief that I can feel anything at all.  

And yes, I miss you… or rather what we had; what we both thought we had.  I miss the potential and the hope.  I miss how hard we tried to understand each other.  I miss the beginning.  I remember you used to say “I want to know you more”.  I really missed hearing that.  

Despite.  We evolved passed ourselves regardless. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is ‘Thank you’ for letting me go the way that you did.  The Universe has since made a sincere effort to show me how much of a blessing the end truly was… and still is.