I am nervous to write today, every time I begin, I find myself trapped, words come out and they are all about a man who left me years ago who doesn't care, who isn't interested and tho' he was a part of my life for a while he is a yesterday not a now. The piece I am working on at the moment began with a doodled out note some years ago when my tears were still fresh. It relates to him but is really about me, I think, about me remembering me, me meeting and embracing life, about loving and losing a lover but getting back up. 

I am in the wastes of my mind at the moment, trying to put in to words feelings that are complicated, dense and heavy, it is not possible. In the end I have a feeling I will look back and realise that letting go of Jon was really as simple as shaking a stone out of my shoe. 

Years on from a love affair that didn't stay the distance there is still sadness but what can you do ? It is hard not to take the ending as rejection, it is hard to be graceful and polite, it is hard to be gentle, hard not to be hurt, to feel slighted, less good, just less. Rejection is a hard lesson. 
Rejection and rejection's terrible sister, defeat, are not easy to bear. Rejection comes in lots of shapes and forms that most of us will meet at some point in our lives - a failed job application or work proposal, an unfair dismissal from a job, a lover's betrayal, or people being just plain nasty. But often the rejection is twofold, we are rejected and we find an echo in that rejection within ourselves. We hit up against something outside of us that tells us we are worthless, and inside of us something tells us it is true. How do we counter those feelings of worthlessness, how do we hold our line. There is a desire to disappear into obscurity to hide in the crowd, to normalise, and another pull to plunge into the abyss, let the darkness swallow your shame if only to experience the brief moment when our falling feels like flying. 
The task is ongoing. The path of love requires courage and fortitude. It asks of us that when we hit against the ugly mean aspects of life we respond not with like but with grace. And grace is not unlimited. No one, no man, no beast, no body, should be tested to the end of their grace. 
Aah, am I waffling again ? I am. My blog is a pot of sin at the moment. A personal failure. I feel like I am retching out words and they are coming out as vomit. What am I hoping to gain by exposing every bit of me, exposing my weaknesses, my ugliness, the bits that make me cringe or recoil from myself, what might be gained by that exposure ?
I think perhaps it is unconditional love. Can I love you, can I love me, can I love life when it hands me rotten fruit. It is something I have been exploring with focus this past year. 
Unconditional love is the diamond in the volcanoes spew, the pearl the oyster makes out of the irritant grit. Is it a possible to love without condition, to love without traps and snares, is it possible to be so free, so sure, to love un-hobbled by our egos needs, our vain desires ? It is a path I seek to tread but not an easy route. 
I wonder if it is even a tangible thing. What is love ? We know it when we are in the presence of it, but as the past few posts have shown me, and anyone who may have forced themselves to read them, love is not words. Love is being. Love is.