We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadness of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this - through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication - we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from the crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh sea water that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness.
Love is, to me, the ultimately more extraordinary part of the breakwater wall: it helps to shut out the terror and awfulness, while, at the same time, allowing in life and beauty and vitality. Love is a sustainer, a renewer, and a protector.
With your death in my heart, it is my hope, that someday love will return to re-create hope and to restore life. Love makes the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest. It provides not only a cloak, but lantern for the darker seasons and grimmer weather. This hope of love is Heaven. Where there is no sadness, only love.
I have abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements and they will be there until "the watch is taken from the wrist".
If given the choice to have met you or not. The answer would be yes, I would do it all again. It's complicated. This sadness, emptiness, depression is awful beyond words. I would not want to go through this again. It stresses relationships, there is an inability to enjoy life, to walk or talk or think normally, the exhaustion, the sleepless nights and the intrusive memories, whether you want them or not. There is nothing good to be said for this. This is what it must feel like to be old and sick, to be dying; to be slow of mind; to have no belief in the possibilities of life, the pleasures of sex, the exquisiteness of music or the ability to make yourself and others laugh. Others may imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job or broke up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. This void I have has no feelings. Instead it is flat, hollow and unendurable. It is also tiresome. It's hard to be around people when you are depressed. I'm irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding. No reassurance is never enough. I'm frightened and I'm not at all like myself, but supposedly I will be soon, but I know I won't. I'll never be myself again. So why would I want anything to do with this loss? You opened my eyes to love, life and so many more things. Because of you I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often and even cried tears of joy, happiness, and love; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters; appreciated life more; because of you I've experienced caring and loyalty at its deepest level; I've seen the finest in people, I've seen the breadth and depth and width of my mind and heart and seen how frail they both are, and how ultimately unknowable they both are. Devastated, I have crawled on my hands and knees after your death and felt the depths of a hell that can only be the equevicable opposite of the love that I have for you. It has tested the limits of my mind and the limits of my faith. This has brought into my life a different level of faith, feeling and thinking. Even when I have been at my lowest I have been aware of finding new corners in my mind and heart. Some of those corners held you, they were incredible and beautiful and took my breath away and made me feel as though I could die right then and the images of you and your love would sustain me. I can't imagine becoming jaded to life because I know of those limitless corners with their limitless views. So although you aren't physically with me today, if I reach deeply into those corners, there you are in all your beauty. And if just for a moment I experience a short reprise from this loneliness, it takes me somewhere so heavenly, I know I'm with you even if only for a moment.
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