Tuesday Morning Hit

Generally I try not to post twice in one day, but since this is my emotional outlet for right now, I thought I would relate an interesting incident that happened on my way to work. I was hit by a car. Not seriously hurt or anything, but definitely hit, knocked down by one of those long town cars that apparently hate to stop at the lights.

The driver jumped out and I was sitting in the pedestrian crosswalk sobbing. He thought it was because he had hit me and I didn't have the heart to tell him I've been crying for a couple of days now, and just to ignore it. Instead I got up, thinking how ironic it was the only thing that protected me is the stupid gym bag I seem to lug everywhere and got myself brushed off and kept walking. He kept asking, "Are you sure you're okay? Are you sure?" No, I'm not okay.

It's the same with my heart. I've been hit, harder than the car hit me, and bruised. Everyone says you have to get up and brush it off, but how do you brush off your soulmate? My friend Chase died several years ago and after his death we all mourned him, especially one of my good friends and his girlfriend. She said she would never be the same, would never love that way again, and it's true. Next week she's marrying someone she loves very much and who adores her, but has to live in the shadow of a soulmate.

What a funny word, the way it's divided. Soul mate. Is your soul really not enough on its own? I always believed it was searching for a better part of itself in someone else, and I found that. When you have that confirmation it seems enough to think that your soul does need a mate, or several. My best friends are "soulmates", my animals are "soulmates" (sometimes) and sometimes I connect with random people on the street or in the Subway. We look at each other and there is a flash of common ground that suddenly leads me to know, without a word, that they had something of my soul within them. Some people say you can spend a lifetime searching for a soulmate and never find one, but I wonder how often that turns out to be true.

Maybe it's better to have the physical hit of something this big than to go through life protecting your soul from being hurt by a mate. I've spent my whole life surrounding myself with an emotional wall and never letting people through. I've been called cold, heartless, icy, everything you can think of that is involved with that. But on the inside, once someone knows me, they know it's all lies put in place in an effort not to hurt again. Hurt is human and without it, where would we be? A knew book on depression was released recently claiming that depression is necessary in society so that society understands how lucky it is to have such wonderful companions and things in their lives, to teach them how to keep them and move forward.

I've been heartbroken before, but never to the extent of walking in front of a car because I was so focused on what was happening inside. Never to the extent of considering taking a sick-day to try and pull myself back together. Never to the extent of baring who I really was and hoping he wouldn't run over it.


Don't ever--regardless--
be conjoined with what's dear
or undear.
It's painful
not to see what's dear
or to see what's not.
So don't make anything dear,
for it's dreadful to be far
from what's dear.
No bonds are found
for those for whom
there's neither dear
nor undear.

-Dhammapada, 16, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu