Love's Sting Still Stung

Woke up with the right side of my nose congested. Vaguely wondered what that meant emotionally, what’s coming out now?? Memory of a sticking-to-yourself kind of July heatwave unfolded, one that I seldom revisit since it happened 4 years ago. Shock: It feels like at least 10!... yet here it is haunting me still...

I was driving in crushing rush hour traffic westbound on Lakeshore, can’t remember where I was going now, or why I didn’t have the A/C on instead of marinating in the brutal afternoon heat and exhaust, and I was screaming. Screaming into my phone at A., screaming as loud as I had to to drown out her voice at the other end, screaming so the fury erupting inside would not blow me up into a million irreconcileable pieces.

So much emotional charge is still with me from that day, yet I cannot recall the details of what brought on that final break between us. Strange... All I have are the impressions that it left on me, an old scar gone silvery white after all the forgiving and forgetting are done, but I can still see the marks made indelible by feelings of betrayal, loss, and grief. I searched myself for signs of resentment now, and ah! there is still a little left, enough to bring me to this remembrance today.

I could get into tracing the development of our relationship, but I have the feeling that is better saved for another day; the writing is already looming on the wall for what it means to me today, and it says: Betrayal. And it is a much bigger betrayal than what I charged her with. I feel betrayed by love. I, who was once the apple of my mother’s eye, my lover’s, my friend’s, was suddenly tossed aside like so much impersonal refuse in one single act, with a swift kick to make sure I’m truly out of the way. That last kick was always the stab in the back, delivered by the ‘excuse’ my betrayor gave for why they had to do what they did. But I have forgiven and worked through those wounds, so there must be something underneath I hadn’t dig down far enough to... a deep dark cold is seeping...

It is the cold indifference that suddenly slammed into my face, where a warm rosy glow used to be in my relationship with these people once so close to me. I am stunned for I do not know what I have done wrong, what has happened while I was happily basking in love, why I was not given any warning, if life was indeed fair and kind. I am still frozen, in shock from the sudden withdrawal of love. I’ve lived the life of someone who fears love, stuck between giving and receiving, allowing neither.

I appeal to divine Source now, to bring warmth and life and flow to this frozen part of me, unlock me from this barren cell of loneliness, estranged from love, afraid of its sting, yet longing so much with what’s left of my heart for love to penetrate all and hold me again, and make me whole.

Something needs to happen in me... I need to be struck by love, like swift lightning, and this time I will be ready, with my heart held open, this time it is for healing.

The bride and groom have been brought together, but the marriage is yet to take place. The bride has not fallen in love with her betrothed for she has not yet seen his face, the face that is her own.
_______________

I don’t want to be
a dog
in a dog-eat-dog world.
Rather be a honey bee
making love
with a sting in my heart.

Ha!