The Leap

For the past several months I've been helping a very dear friend get through the heartbreak of loving someone who doesn't love him...enough. I can totally identify with how he is feeling and I can understand every ache.

I don't believe anyone else can identify as well as someone who has also been stuck in that deep dark cavern of despair. There is such a dichotomy of feelings that surround you....in that you don't want to be alone, but you don't want to be with anyone. You want to cry but no tears will come. You want to be angry but the love overrides the anger. You want to love but there is no one there to love. You want to lose yourself in work but the concentration is somewhere else. You just start to feel okay and a wave of despair hits you and you are back beneath the undertow of hurt. I get it because I've been there.

I've tried to be there as much as possible to reassure him that there is life after heartbreak, but sadly it is something he won't believe until he has lived through it all. I think the truth of it is that we don't want to believe there is life after it all. What we want is to turn back the clock and be in that time when life was so overwhelmingly perfect and your heart felt like it couldn't be any fuller. That time, when you had jumped off the ledge and were free floating in love. Nothing could stop you and nothing seemed unobtainable as you were on top of the world.

But the problem with jumping off that ledge is that eventually you see the ground heading towards you and there isn't anything you can do to stop it from slamming you in the face...and when you hit...you hit hard.

I believe that for those of us who have longed to be loved and held back for an extended period of time, being careful to not even go near that ledge or even peak over the edge, that when we do finally take that leap, we take a full throttle run at it...arms out-stretched, open to feel the total effect of the wind and the sights as we are 'falling' in love.

Our hearts have been closed for so long that we forgot how good it feels to be in love...to sense every sound, taste, feeling that it has to offer. To feel happy just at the mere thought of someone wanted to be in love with you. Someone wanting to spend time with you. Someone wanting to hear all about your life...your sorrows...your joys. Someone who hangs on your every word. To matter to another human. To feel the touch of someone, to hold them close physically and emotionally

And we want to feel it so much...that we really are blinded by the joy of it all. We don't want to see any negatives, but they are there, lurking in the background, just waiting for the right moment to pop into your consciousness.

My friend wanted to be loved...and he deserved to be loved. He is a special person to me because he helped me through some really dark moments in my life. He doesn't even know how special is to me because I've never shared all the details with him.

He came into my life by chance...but I don't really believe in chance do I?...things happen for a reason.

The day we 'met', I had decided that my pitiful life was too much for me to endure anymore and it was time for me to end the pain. I felt like no one understood me, or cared enough about me to help me out of the cavern of hurt I was in. I was alone in ALL senses of that tiny word. And I couldn't see any way out of it...there was no light at the end of that tunnel...then, there he was. He was gentle, attentive and kind...things I had not experienced, well, ever. He gave me just enough hope to stay around for a while.

So, years have passed and I'm still here. I've discovered that there is life after heartbreak and that a helping hand can come out of nowhere, so we mustn't give up. And it is my turn to extend the helping hand to guide him through the darkness of hurt.

He had been closed to feelings for a very long time, never even thinking of leaping off the ledge. He'd been going through life with blinders on as far as love was concerned. He had one priority and it was his son. Nothing matters more to him and allowing someone into his life would have detracted from his responsibility to his son. He had not loved...for years.

But his son is a man now, and my friend found that he had time for himself and he met someone...the wrong someone. She was married and 'loved' her husband. She made it clear from the beginning, that she would not leave her husband.

I know...you're asking "What was he thinking?". He was thinking that he could maintain the distance that he had been keeping from people for all those lonely years. But no...he had space in his heart now for someone, and she crept into the deepest recesses of that tender, unused heart and started punching holes through every wall.

This isn't who my friend is...he's not a cheat, or a liar, or unfaithful. He is the antithesis of all those things, and the pressure of all that combined with the waiting and wanting that goes hand in hand with being 'the other man' started taking its inevitable toll on him and he ended the relationship.

I could hear his heart breaking...and I could see where it was going to end, but just as when one watches an accident happening...there was nothing I could do to stop the damage. He had made that running leap into love and there was no safety net. All I could do was be there to help him in any small way I could. But it never felt like enough.

All any of us want in life is to matter to someone. We want to be...wanted. That simple. And when we discover, realize, that we don't matter...enough or aren't wanted...enough, it is devastating. We've allowed ourselves to believe that it can happen, we let go of all the doubts and protective barriers that hold us back from that ledge and we FALL in love. We trust that someone is going to be at the bottom to catch us. But those blinders that are part of the love package, haven't allowed us to see reality clearly.

The fall doesn't "kill" us...it stuns, stings, and shatters every ounce of our being and we lose our bearings for a while but eventually we pick up the pieces and go on. We're never the same, but we do GO ON...and in time, lots of time, we eventually leap again taking the lessons we have learned from the last exercise to help us navigate the fall, and most of us will take a parachute for the next jump. It will not be as rough the next time...and there will be a next time.

My friend will survive and will find that special someone who will cherish him as much as I do because that is what he deserves.