The Reading

I thought I was doing good dealing with the pain, being brave and trying to go on with my life.
And then in one night it changes and finally I am really, really free.

I met a soul reader tonight.

A soul reader is someone who he tells your story for you. A medium who mouths your innermost
fears, and hopes. More than that, he tells you what you need to hear to make you take the next step.

He told me I nourish the pain because I am afraid that letting go of it will erase everything--the memories,
the love. And then he looks me in the eye and tells me what I've been hiding all along---up until now I was
unwilling to let go.

We live our lives thinking there is that someone who is destined to be our soulmate, that perfect fit, the missing piece.
And for so long it is this thought that made me cling to the past. I thought I've found the one and so isn't it just right for
us to be together in the end? Even in the face of reality, of his marriage, of the impossibility of this yearning, I held on to an ember of hope. Which is dead wrong. I was being buoyed by a wrong notion. The thing is maybe a soulmate is not limited to one single person, that in life we will meet soulmates who will change us, who will be with us only until we've learned what we have to learn from each other. That there is no need for despair. Yes I've given a part of me, a part of my life to him. And that part of me is gone, he's claimed it. But I have a life to live and the bigger part of me is still intact, and for that alone
I can look forward to finding someone else. Someone who'll touch my life in a different way.

It's the one big roadblock that I must change in myself, thinking that the love I have, the requirements I'm setting forth for the next special person in my life is based on someone from my past. Love is not amenable to rules, it is not limited to a specified set of standard.

He did not choose me. And now I can stand up to anyone proud of what I've been through and tell them because finally I know now that it is true---it's his loss not mine.

The soul reader advised me to write out all the things about him and what we had---to purge them from my memories, to allow the dam to break so I can move on. This is the best way I know how to do it. To jot them down in my own way.

I am so thankful for the chance to have loved someone so deeply, so intensely. How such a love can give so much happiness and bring so much pain, how it enabled me to move out of my comfort zone, to be able to throw out everything, to fight for it in the ways that I knew how. It taught me that I could be brave if I wanted to, that I will fight for what I want. And that at least in love, I could be a warrior. I saw that I am capable of giving much of myself, to compromise my dreams with someone else's. And that the great moments are the little things---the walks, the chats, the simple food, the nights of watching tv. That it doesn't take big, extravagant, or expensive stuffs to make a love that marks you. I realize coming out of it, that I am worthy of being loved even at close range. And that sometimes what you get in return will not be commensurate to what you've put into it.

I've been unfair to someone, using him as my security blanket. He was still the one I ran to for comfort during those dark days despite having hurt him deeply. I know he thinks I hate him for what transpired during the months when we tried to make another go at it. He hurt me yes, and he made me sad too but I now realize it was the kindest thing he ever did for me. He set me free, forced me to accept that I was settling for something that in the end would not have made me fully happy.

So I am finally free. No longer the hurt bird with the clipped wing who was unwilling to take the first jump. The wounds, even those that are too deep and too painful to be seen, are finally healing.

And now I can wake up to a new day without false hopes.