Awakening

This morning, I lie awake beside my husband.  Suddenly, words spring into my mouth and demand to be said.

"Do you ever think that some times we love each other for all the wrong reasons?"

 

"Hmm," he says.  "Do you?"

"Yes.  Some times.  Sometimes I think we're way too co-dependent.  It's not good for us."

"What should we do about it?" he says back in a sleepy voice.

"I don't know.  The words just fell out of my head.  I'm not sure what they mean, yet", I say.

The Sunday morning is lazy and so am I.  I don't want to think about the words.   Understanding them would create a need to act.  Some needs feel too heavy to pick up.  I leave them in a pile on the floor while I take a shower.

After breakfast, I plug myself into music and lose myself in writing.  At least, I try to.  It doesn't take long for the words to find me.   I start to see me, see us, peeking out from between the words.

"Do you ever think that some times we love each other for all the wrong reasons?"

The meaning demands to be found.    The words blink back at me from the heart of a white screen.   I stand before them.  They are an altar of sacrifice.  We are its religion.  It needs reformation.   So do we.    Some where along the way, we've lost ourselves.  Lacking so much we each blame ourselves for what the other lacks.   We are less than we want to be.  We see this in the others' eyes.   We've lost ourselves in a chasm of all that we are not, individually and together.   We have lost the best part of us.

"Do you ever think that some times we love each other for all the wrong reasons?"

As the morning ends, this question opens into another.  It is the more important question.

"Do you think that we can learn to love each other for all the right reasons?"

For a moment, I hesitate to answer, afraid what I might say to myself.  The answer forces itself to the surface.
"Yes", it whispers, "but it won't be easy."
I whisper back, "The best things in life rarely are."

The music that I hoped would "take me away" pulls me back to earth with a vengeance.  I hear the Indigo Girls sing  "A Moment of Forgiveness".
 " In a moment of forgiveness, you reach out and take my hand."

Forgiveness. . . of the self. . . of the other. . .it is the place to start.   I'm fully awake now.  I know where I'm headed.    Loving for all the right reasons waves from the distance.

"Come and get me,"  it says.
I start walking.