Throughout all my travels this year, I made only one condition on myself: not to do trips I’ve already done before. But I have to admit that I felt compelled to make an exception for the Bahamas. I needed to change my memories of this place.
read more ↓The first time I visited the Bahamas was two and a half years ago. It was an event – not just because the trip was celebrating my career change and my then boyfriend’s birthday, but because it was our first official trip together. In the week leading up to it I’d suggested that we not see each other, just as a way to shake up our routine. We’d sort of fallen into that rut that couples tend to fall into, where you spend your Fridays and Saturdays laying on the couch watching TV, deep and meaningful conversations are starting to get fewer and further between, and neither one of you thinks anything is wrong with going into the other room to tinker on the computer while the other is over… almost as if you’re trying to avoid each other, but not admit that that’s what you’re doing.
I spent that week-long break working so I didn’t have to stress while I was gone, but also in primping and priming. I wanted to look beautiful for him. I wanted to have the kind of trip that couples in love were supposed to have, where they run and play on the beach during the day, stealing a salty kiss here and there, and then spend the nights making love, only to wake in the morning and do it again. I wanted to share those secret glances couples use in public that conveyed such strong feeling that words became completely useless. I wanted to fall in love all over again.
We had fun. We ate and rode jet skis, we suntanned and spaed. But the one moment I remember most from that trip came after the one and only time that we made love. We were staying at the Four Seasons in a room that was steps away from the beach, which had sand so fine and so white that it was like walking on baby powder. The patio door was open so we could hear the waves crash against the sand. He was asleep, the covers a tangled mess around him, and I watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. I was wide awake and had no hope of falling asleep any time soon. And as I laid there next to him – wishing he would hold me, or that I could hold him – all I could think was, I’ve never felt more lonely.
This time is decidedly different.
I’m staying in a brand new tower of the very same hotel that I stayed in when I was last here. I’ve been sleeping deeply and comfortably, eating healthily and feeling really mellow. I’ve not made it to the beach yet, but I went down the waterslide I was too afraid to ride last time. I wasn’t even freaked out by the drop. (Actually, I was more annoyed by my bathing suit getting shoved so far up my ass that I fear I may shit fabric for a week.) I went to the spa and had an incredible massage. I haven’t turned on the TV once. This is in stark contrast to last time, when I barely even got in the water, hardly slept a wink, ate enough food to feed the entire state of Texas for 16 years and followed up a massage with a viewing of Bowling For Columbine. (In my defense, I’d never seen it before and reasoned that it was on TV, so why not? But really – who follows up a relaxing massage with a movie about gun control issues!?!)
But the biggest difference is that in no way do I feel lonely. Am I alone? Well, kinda – there are four other people on this trip with me, but technically I’m alone in that I’m not really here vacationing with someone. But lonely? No. Not in the slightest. In fact, I’ve greatly appreciated the downtime I’ve been having because it gives me a chance to relax and unwind, and just spend time with me. It’s tremendously freeing. However, I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit that I’ve had a few moments where I’ve thought, I walked through here with him or I remember when he said this here. I was standing in line at Starbucks as I was musing over these thoughts that were swirling around in my brain and threatening to make me crazy. That’s when I looked up and saw a quote on the back of this woman’s t-shirt. The end of it read:
It gave me the jolt that I needed – that little reminder that remembering the good times was okay, but that in no way did it negate my decision to leave, and in no way did it mean it was a bad decision. Because when I left I made a commitment to myself to strive, to seek and to find a love that I was worthy of – and that was worthy of me – and not to yield.
I don’t regret the time that I spent with him – not one minute. And though I think I’d hoped that there might be a future for us, I think I know now that the purpose of him coming into my life was to shake me to my core and really force me to take a look at things in order to make a change, because that change hadn’t come on the heels of my divorce or in light of any failed dating attempts I’d made between my marriage failing and getting wrapped up in the relationship that followed it. Had I not have gone through what I went through with him, I might still be cycling in the same madness that I’ve been cycling through for forever. And lord knows that wasn’t working.
Not to drag this out for longer than it needs to go, but all this was really solidified for me when I got my monthly Osho newsletter. There was a link that sent me to this page, which answers a question asked by one of his students: “To fall in love is so easy. Why is it so difficult to fall out of love? So many discussions, tears, fights, fears.... I don’t want to hurt the person I’ve been with, because it’s not that there is no feeling. I’m so confused. Can you say something?”
A lot of it was incredibly insightful and poignant, but this was especially so:
A simple thing has to be understood: love -- the love that you are talking about -- is not in your hands. You have fallen into it. It was not in your power not to fall, so when it comes, it takes you with it. But it is like a breeze, it comes and goes. And it is good that it comes and goes, because if it stays it becomes stale…
…"Never fall in love. Try to rise." And rising in love is a totally different matter. Rising in love means a learning, a changing, a maturity. Rising in love ultimately helps you to become grown-up. And two grown-up persons don’t quarrel; they try to understand, they try to solve any problem.
Anybody who rises in love never falls from it, because rising is your effort, and the love that is grown through your effort is within your hands. But falling in love is not your effort.
Falling in love -- that love is going to be disrupted somewhere, and the sooner it is understood that it is gone, the better; otherwise you become too entangled in a thousand and one things. Those are the things which make it difficult to separate.
“Rising in love.”
I like the sound of that.
