Catalyst Of The Heart

By

I fell in love.

With you.

With an idea of how it could be.

Of what it should be like, of how it should feel, to have someone stand beside you, with no reason to be there at all, but who stayed to make you laugh to make you smile, through the tears, to save you from your inner demons, the thoughts inside your mind. And it was very different to anything I had experienced. It was everything, it asked for nothing. And I yearned to learn more of this mysterious precipice. And I hungered for more of its divine delight.

And I don’t know much. A novice at life, I stumble, I fall, I get up and walk again. Irresistible to me, the chance. The opportunity to be enlightened. To experience something once in a lifetime, real and deep and true.

And so I followed my heart. And my heart said leave. Walk away. From the life you’ve known. Walk toward the glowing light you’ve seen, the warmth you’ve felt. This is what you need for sustenance, to survive. Love. And you have so much of it, you remember that now, burning within your heart, deep within your soul, and there are so many you can touch with that light, a warmth they will never forget. A spark that may just light another fire, one you may never see but that will continue to burn and relight throughout the world and forever. And isn’t the world in need of more love?

Maybe I’m a dreamer but after a while I tend to fall in love with anyone I meet who is real, who is raw. Is that so wrong? There are so many ways to love. It’s almost as though we are taught that love is finite. That we can or should only love one person at one time. But doesn’t that go against the whole concept of love? Shouldn’t we be loving as much as we can? Love is all powerful, all encompassing. Love is unselfish and it is not jealous. What is it to live without loving and to be loved?

You say I sought a soulmate but I know better. I know some.

A soulmate is not something for which you seek, it is something that collides with you, a force so unexpected it shakes your very existence, your very essence. And that is why I sit here now. In a quaint, timber walled coffee shop on Robson St, in downtown Vancouver sipping the rich golden hues of my espresso, listening to piano jazz, in my beanie and boots. Its been snowing outside, the air crisp and cool, the streets smell of sweet winter. Physically, the place where I sit, is as far away as I could possibly be from what I knew as my world, my life. And of course you are not here, you were never here. And you weren’t meant to be. But this is just an outcome of the meeting of us.

A catalyst. A mirror that reflected back at me everything I knew but had avoided. At that point in my life, when we met, I was numb, drained, beaten. Was it you that made me feel safe, adored, loved? Or was it that I’d let you?

I fell in love with you. You know that now. But I now understand there are different kinds of love. And the love I felt, was the one I created because I needed it. You accepted it. You, a vessel that had no other place to be. My love and energy, enough to give you reason to be there for me as I crumbled. As the life I was leaving, and the new life I was to enter, hit its point of no return. Your strength, holding me together, the moment I realized it was over. And there is a beauty in that.

In my moment of despair, you were the bridge. You were the structure that supports the arches, the path, between two barren lands, that from afar we can’t fathom, how they remain as they do. Without swaying, without crashing into the rough and unforgiving seas below. Without the bridge, there is no way for one to cross from one side to the other. But once we do reach the other side, the bridge is no longer required. It’s job is done. And we can only gaze back and enjoy the sight of a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing with purpose, which purpose has been fulfilled.

And we often say, in a careless whisper, in meaningless chatter, that people come into our lives for a reason. But I believe it to be true. If we take the time to connect with people, to observe, to learn from them, to give to them what it is they are needing and to accept what it is they are trying to give to the world, then when we reflect, maybe a short time, or perhaps a long time after the event, when our mind is clear, we realize that we have loved. We have given of ourselves and we have accepted of another, without pretense and without judgement. You can appreciate the purpose of that meeting and be grateful for the connecting of souls because that is the beauty of life. Why else would there be so many of us, with so many different thoughts, so many gifts to share.

The greatest modesty is to learn that by reaching out a hand, by sharing your heart, you are not failing, it is not a sign of weakness. You are stronger than you ever imagined because you are open, opening to yourself to the collective human soul, of which we are all part of.

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