tortious elsewhere: guest posts

in search of fairer weather {posted at blogging barbie}

Cheating on me. I saw the text message and my stomach dropped. And then I heard Barbie’s quivering, sobbing voice and found myself sitting doubled over with my head in my hands, almost dizzy with emotion. Barbie recently shared an intensely personal glimpse into her life (which you can read here, if you haven’t already). And on that day she found herself crumpled in a heap on the floor, I cried too. Because I’ve been that very same heap. On that very same floor.

I remember sitting at my desk and staring at my computer monitor and trying with every ounce of restraint I could muster not to collapse in heaving sobs in the middle of a busy law firm. I have recollections of walking outside with my cell phone and a searing conversation that are both blurry and razor sharp. And of locking myself in a bathroom stall at that prestigious law firm, choking on the force of my tears and trying my best to remember how to breathe. My hands were shaking and my stomach was sick; my eyes burning and my mind racing and tumbling, completely unable to wrap itself around what every one of my senses told me was going on. And later that night he came over and gave me a gift - something that, 24 hours earlier, would have melted me into a thousand little smiles and instead, I’ve never felt in my life such a primally strong urge to hit someone. Maybe just so they could hurt some, too.

There is no pain in the world like that of betrayal. It doesn’t hurt. It slices. Like a dull jagged razor. And in your mind you think of all the things he told you and all the things he said and all the things you believed; and then you picture what was really happening while you were so monumentally stupid in believing all those insipid and childish and idealistic lies. The feeling of being reduced to something that someone lied about. Of believing your significance was real and tangible and then realizing it was only a fabrication for the convenience of someone who used you. Just blatantly used you.

That’s what goes through your mind immediately. That’s the knee-jerk, gut-check, completely visceral reaction. But it’s far too black and white. And like Barbie wrote, life is really found in the greys. Her decision to work through the betrayal and the pain and to forge a path to forgiveness and trust: that’s grey. And I made the same decision. And as I have watched my beautiful friend weather this storm with an impossible amount of grace, it is as though my own struggles have been illuminated and chronicled for me.

I have learned that anger is one of life’s imperatives. Seething, red-faced, tear-streaked anger. And when we are bruised to our core, it is often the only thing we know is truly ours. But I have also learned that, terrifying as it may be, there is a time to let the anger go. That learning to trust again means closing our eyes and blindly accepting the words of someone who has lied to us, and that while this flies in the face of every seeming instinct, it’s the only way to start picking up the pieces. And sometimes those pieces are sharp around the edges, and we don’t know just where to put them yet, and uncomfortable as it may be, we just have to hold them for a little while.

I have come to understand that forgiveness is something that cannot be forced. Much like love, it will come into being on its own terms, in its own time. I cried myself to sleep many a night for wanting so desperately to forgive and yet finding myself with a complete inability to do so. I just didn’t know how. And it is only as I write this today, having had my own heartbreak and loss mirrored by the struggles of my incredible friend that I finally realize: I have. It was breathtakingly painful, and it’s a long time coming. But I wrestled with insecurity and doubt until my soul was weary and my heart was worn; and it is in this small, quiet place in the calm after the tempest that I have found my ability to forgive.

Barbie has made an incredibly difficult decision. And obviously, it’s not always the right decision to make. Sometimes it is black and white and the very clear answer is to walk away. And sometimes it’s not. Conventional wisdom told me to run as fast as I could from a man who has come to change the very landscape of my life. I chased that very silly little idea of love and sought that very idealistic place of forgiveness. And I found it.

Barbie is an incredibly gorgeous, smart, witty, vivacious woman with a damn fine head on her shoulders and a thousand-watt sparkling smile. What you may not know about her is that she has strength of a lion, the tenacity of a bulldog, and a glowing determination to live the kind of life that becomes her. My wish for her is that she feel the warm comfort of a stronger, healed relationship and that she find the peace and the steady, soothing calm of love’s recovery.

And BB, I will be right here to light every step of your way.