Evolution is tearing away the veil, turning the tide to what’s under.
You see, Nirvana is not a place you reach when all your woe is behind,
but when you’re at terms with you and time.
“The Last Rose” was born of a time in my life Having gone through a separation from both a love and myself. Distanced between how other’s perceived me and how I saw myself. What I was experiencing was a disrupted narrative. It was in this shift in circumstance I turned to the wisdom of one of my greatest inspirations, Albert Einstein; That “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Being a strong INFJ / INTJ, and having gone through several rounds of depression in my days huddled behind my screen had pushed me to not only feel emotion but work to understand its core root. Above all seeking intentions, and then applying character traits, self-governing philosophies, experiences and expectations to the mix.
Enamored with psychology most of my adult life, I found it easier to deal with my pain if I were to view it objectively, or as a “problem to be solved.” A psychological equation of sorts, writing everyday in an attempt to measure and grasp the full gravitas of coping with love and loss. Both separately and together. At least what I was experiencing in the romantic sense. While most may feel their pain, yet never truly digesting the intrinsic lessons bore of such vulnerable, and naked truths.
After a break-up, divorce or separation of any sort, we most often choose the worn and callused path of resentment. First thought I had of it was a few years back a friend and I brought the thought to question in a ‘hazy’ early-morning conversation. Finding it so bizarre how two, once coupled individuals, could reveal themselves, and bear their truth so unapologetically, only meet one another’s gaze and turn away as if they had never loved.
This observation disturbed me, and so did societies projected expectations. As if that worn and callused path was the only way, acceptable, to move on with your life.
I understand that Love and fear brings out the truth. Both existing innately in every relationship with our fears feeding our insecurity. Holding the truth about ourselves and others. Humanity, as much as any other part of nature, can be strikingly beautiful and deathly terrifying, and almost always––simultaneously. Likely playing a role in how we describe “falling in love.” With falling being an exhilarating but not exactly comforting feeling.
I stared at the picture, watching the peddles fall. I realized they were pieces of myself, but as each one of them fell, through every sorrow, a new layer of myself was revealed. Self discovery being one of the greatest gifts of human life.
As Andrew Solomon put it, In the wake of painful experiences we forge meaning and build our identity. I said to myself, “I didn’t want to go on remembering this moment this way. Only to realize that amongst the rubble of our sorrows, we are presented with a choice. To allow our heart to become jaded, or to stand at the threshold of reality and accept what is, not what you wish it would be. To become jaded would have meant those peddles be shed for not. That… my love would have been in vein..
The very thought that sparked the near 2 year quest before catching a glimpse of this truth.
Amidst months of isolation I refuted the idea and searched for the mental pathway that would allow this philosophies’s application to my character. In a way this writing, and ‘that’ picture is how I choose to go on remembering. The thought I chose to entertain was that No love is in vein. Only if you choose to remember it that way. It’s all in what your thought makes so. What we consciously or subconsciously apply to our life story. Leading us down our own path to speak our truth, for only our truth has the power to restore our confiscated humanity.
Let it be. Let those peddles fall, uncovering your core. Discovering your soul. The essence that drives you. We hold those loves and losses close to our heart. Although knowing their shadows we, surely, first felt the warmth of their light.
I will end with a request. Please do not allow the coldness of this world harden your heart. Choose to cherish each fading peddle. Keeping the memory of its vibrant glee. Sometimes alone is a choice made in exchange for the cost of your freedom. True love is unconditional and transcends all else. Believe in it, believe in yourself, and share it with the world.
All this, I say to myself, but share with you.
Thank you