Letting Go of What We Must

To my loved one,

I would never want you to betray your alignment with life.  It is, after all, the only source of true love and our shared commitment to this alignment has been the reason that our love has run so deep and been so profound. 

Over the past few days I have been wondering what could be said between us.  

I think many things, helpful things, if we were ready to say them.  But you are not and the pain I feel reading this makes me feel that I am not either.  I accept this and it hurts, terribly.  

I do not know much about love either.

I know that what you have said here reflects our lack of communication, because you feel asked of in ways that I have not asked.  You feel that I feel I cannot farm without you or not live without you?  I know the sadness of the past has been confusing.  

Rilke said:  "I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people:  that each protects the solitude of the other." When I think about true love between two people conquering all, this is what I think of.  It does not look like commitment and as my father said it is not passionate or messy.  I am sorry that you find yourself in the clutches of guilt and avoidance.  If that is all you can see when you think of me, no doubt there is a need for separation.  My decision to keep my distance from you has not been based on anything but this same need for separation.  If I cannot enjoy I must accept and if I cannot accept I must stop.  This is, the hardest thing I have ever done.  This experience has brought to light, the most unexplored destructive patterns within both of us.  The only 'mistake' I can imagine you making in any of this is to ignore what is happening when that pattern arises in you.  I feel you teetering on the edge of that.  I have been teetering too...and gone over.  You were not ready for that; you could not find the light in me then, of course.  The ability to love on that level is one that we cannot choose.  It must be gifted to us, and it is a beautiful consequence of moving in perfect alignment with life.  Last night I was thinking about you and I realized something.  I wanted to call you and tell you about the blossoming romance between Joseph and me.  I noticed that this is a habit that I must let go of and it is not important.  And I explored the feeling more and found something else in myself.  "I love you like I love the sun.".  You said this to me one morning last semester.  This is how I love you.  This is how I will always love you.  I lay in bed and thought about not talking to you for 60 years and realized that I would love you the same at the end of that time.  And that on the eve of my death I would have words for you and they would be "Thank you for being.  I love you like I love the sun,".  That will never change for me.  And if you are not there at my side when I die, I will still say those words to you.  And that will be enough. This experience is not tragic or a mistake.  It is an opportunity, an opening. I truly believe that you will 'stay the course'.  On the most human of levels, I find the incredible warmth of comfort in that thought.   

I love you,

Jesse