One Sure Thing
by
In love, we all know there are no rules. That’d make it too easy to understand.
I’ve blogged in the past about how certain music pulls me back to a memory or a segment of my life. U2′s “Achtung Baby” album certainly has that effect. I am drawn to listen to it. Its slow beats; its echoing pain; its lilting melodies. I became a fan of Daniel Lanois through my days of being a groupie fan of Big Sun. It no longer surprises me that Lanois was one of the producers on “Achtung Baby.” The ephemeral quality of that album is his mark.
Back when I was listening to Achtung Baby, I was in my final year of college, falling in and out of love with a guy I knew from grammar school. That one relationship, aside from my marriage, is one that most helps define who I am today. And in the background of that relationship, U2 and Bob Marley played.
It was Ben that taught me to think critically and independently, to question authority and things I took for granted as constants. He also taught me that in the end we are alone and have to find strength from within first.
He’s who I got peace from when I lost my job and thought the world was falling away from me. When everyone else was aghast and feeling sorry for me (including myself) it was Ben that said into the phone to me from Japan, “You hated that job. They did you a favor! Things get set straight.” Things get set straight. I’ve come back to that bit of advice time and again.
He’s the one that said, “I like your apartment. I really see you in it,” and made me realize that I had opinions about the art (or lack thereof) on my walls and the furniture I chose, even secondhand. He’s the one that introduced me to the works of Milan Kundera and Nietzsche, writings that literally changed my life. He’s the reason I read Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” I’ve forgiven him this last thing.
Ben broke my heart not less than three times. And in the end, I made him tell me it wasn’t me that he wanted and promise to stick to that. To stop coming back to me because I’d always take him back. And he did, and he’s kept his promise. Rejection is a powerful thing. And it can cause the harboring of all sorts of negative feelings. In this case, there is none of that. I am nothing but grateful to Ben. He gave me the keys that in turn have given my life more meaning. And sometimes it’s the not getting what we want that makes us grow.
We are now both married (I truly like his wife and he sincerely likes CS, and the spouses both like each of us), and we have remained good friends. He has a daughter six months older than Sun. We now talk about diapers and daycare and the future of our children.
The feelings I have for Ben will always be strong. And I give CS a lot of credit for understanding this love I have for Ben and being a strong enough man to know that that love doesn’t threaten my love for CS. That that love is part of who I am, is part of what CS loves about me. Take it away, and I lose a bit of my soul.
I can only hope that Sun has a Ben, heart breaks and all, in her life. Before she meets her CS. I just hope that unlike me, she shares her time of great self-growth and maturation with her mother.
As a mother you do all you can to protect your kids from the realities of the world. But without these realities and experiences there is a potential to miss out on opportunity to grow. This post just proves that with pain/hurt you can find peace or a path that you were not aware of yourself.
When I read this post my mouth dropped. It was like reading about my own life. I had one of these people. He still exists in my life but in the same way yours does. In fact, we just talked diapers and parenting for an hour on the phone a month ago! The rejection part was almost identical too! Wow.
I always say it was all the good and bad men that I had relationships that taught me what I really wanted in a husband. They were important and very influential in their own way