Dissolution

It’s been a year now since one world ended, and another began. A time when the immediacy of the overwhelming sadness, failure, and regret that has hovered over these past few years with such a brooding sense of presence was finally replaced with a somewhat lighter and jauntier hop skip and jump into the devil’s heart of something new. It seems that everything is set up to be a challenge in this life. Even the good times have to be worked through. It sometimes appears that everything exists only so it can be ripped up and eventually replaced by someone or something else. It’s at times like this that we learn to dip our toes in the water again, to surf the faint heartbeat of our hesitant existence, followed by another headfirst dive into a consequence, wondering if it will be any different this time round.

For a while we float on the wings of possibility, with our shadow stalking us, hoping that chance will present itself, again. One more time for luck. That’s part of the problem. It’s the hope that makes us make the same mistakes over and over again. The pattern of our lives sometimes reflects the challenge faced by the needle stuck on crackling vinyl that has reached its troublesome last thread. Round and round it goes until one-day life changes and everything turns out just the way it was always meant to be. For better, for worse. Suddenly we’re in the right place at the right time or the wrong one at the wrong time. Suddenly the stars align. Some call it fate. Some call it luck. Some call it happy ever after. Some don’t give a fuck and accept it for what it is. They, it turns out, are the fortunate ones.

And still, I know that this new beginning might not last. It might be yet another shooting star that falls toward earth to crash and burn. But somehow slowly life begins to take some shape again. Suddenly everything that happened before has meaning because it led to this place. We recognize the journey was worth it after all despite the bumps along the way. Maybe it’s the wisdom that comes with hindsight. Maybe it’s some sort of relief that we’re still here, still fighting for our lives despite all the knockbacks and disappointments. There’s some comfort to be found in the acknowledgment that every step of the way holds something valuable. It’s like the excitement to be found on an ancient street stumbled upon in the city’s old heart. It’s like we knew it was there all along, but couldn’t find it and now here it is, all weighed down with its own history, but nevertheless still fresh and vibrant like it’s the first time somebody has ever walked it. So old that it has remained hidden away for all these years.

Like the dreams, we once had scattered on the waste ground of the past, captured in between the hopes and fears we carry with us everywhere. They are rich in context and lessons learned. We know now, that not all of them come true. If we’re lucky maybe only a precious few. Many remain just that, dreams and it seems they are happier that way. More than comfortable with the hint of possibility they slowly fade away, rather than experience the disappointment that reality often brings. Waking suddenly to dawn’s call, the tale remains untold as we struggle to remember the storyline lost in sleep. The first tentative steps of the day are fuelled by the trust we left behind in the very mystery of our dreams.

Having said that, beginning again is never easy. It requires a strong resilience to push through no matter what because often there is no way back. No other way out, the only path is straight ahead. There is only today and tomorrow. Yesterday is just a sad song. The road is dark and it’s a case of one small step at a time and it’s only when we look back much later, that we’ll ask ourselves how we ever made it through. I’m not sure I even heard the word when the judge said it was finally over. There’s a sense of failure that accompanies the end of a marriage. I was there physically but I was elsewhere in my mind. Invisible. I have been for a long time. There seemed to be little point. That horse had long since bolted. Nevertheless, the day when it’s finally declared over is important because it is only then when the referee counts you out that the smelling salts finally begin to kick in.

Of course, there’s sadness, overwhelming sadness, and anger that it had to be this way. But there’s compassion and forgiveness too. Even though I knew the punch was coming, I’d felt its force when I was told it was over, for good the first time. I mightn't have known it back then, but it felt like the end. I lay on my bed in Riyadh for two days and when it was time to try to start again I got up, went downstairs, and made a cup of tea. The Irish answer to the end of the world. Just like now. Exactly like now. I find myself here again.

Often, in Ireland, we like to pretend that whatever it is has never happened. We don’t talk about it. We turn and look the other way. And when we finally shut the door on the past, all that’s left is an eerie silence. That was and still is the most difficult part. The loss of silent friends goes hand in hand with a desperate need to trust again. If it wasn’t for the ties that bind we probably wouldn’t see each other again, except for a little man who knows only love minus the adult complications. He holds us still. He showed the way when the road was at its darkest. He held up a candle and made sure we learned how to find our way back home again.

But home is a different place now. I wake in the middle of the night and still wonder if it really happened, this unruly bookend to love. In truth, dissolution is the permission required for both of us to finally move on. The sense of failure I carry with it will remain until my ashes are scattered on some unknown rock overlooking the sea on Ireland’s coastline. Right now, I’m not sure if I will ever learn to fully trust again. In sickness and in health. For richer for poorer. When it all shatters, it’s difficult to find the meaning in such words.

In the end, all you really need is love. The rest is bound up in the convention of what we are supposed to do. The people we are supposed to be. The words we are supposed to say. Society’s ties that bind. Boy. Girl. Woman. Man. Husband. Wife. Mother. Father. Hunter. Gatherer. Worker Bee. This straight jacket saddles us with much emotional debt. A debt we can never ever hope to repay. It would cost too much. The people whose job it is to make hay from tragedy. A debt that keeps us from the simple things.

The joy. The wonder. The love that’s in us all. The funny things we say. The quirky moments make us smile, again. The magic in the night sky when the stars are sparkling and there seems to be no end of possibility. These precious memories we wish could last forever, caught up in the tears of regret. The times when we fall head over heels and tumble free into the current below. Wild and wonderful. We hold them still despite the bitter harshness of winter’s crazy chill.

And before long we’re chasing a new thread, settling into a new rhythm, and doing our best to start all over again. Doing our best to find ourselves in what is yet to happen. A sense of purpose that seemed to be gone is born again. The survival instinct that refuses to give in, to give up. So instead we find a new reason to live, prosper and wonder. I’m conscious I have always been looking for a way back to spirit, to the perfect moment when I arrived in this world, to an unblemished heart, to a place where only joy remains. I think of all the laughs, the absolute importance of a breaking smile, a warm hug, and a kind gesture signaling that everything is going to be okay.

It’s not easy.

But.

I’m learning to listen out for the little things again. I’ve learned to finally accept that endings often come wrapped up in the wonder of a new beginning.

We remain good friends. I hope we always will.

And with it, I’m gradually learning to treasure the wisdom that comes with moving on.