A Little Context

“Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful.”

― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Let me set the stage, so that you have some insight into the mind behind my ramblings.

The hardest lesson in life is that the deepest, purest feelings are sometimes un-reciprocated. Sometimes the thing that seems most meant to be—the thing that is most meant to be—just... isn't. Or maybe you held it in your hands for a moment, like a stray sunbeam, before it slipped away despite your best efforts to gently hold it close. It's one of life's illogically unfair situations, like a night of insomnia when all you want is sleep, but it doesn't want you.

Worst of all, it's not the sort of lesson that you can learn from, because it didn't arise from a mistake. It is never incorrect to follow your heart. You just can't help your feelings, you can't think your way out of them. You can hide or stifle them, but they're still there. They'll always inform your behaviour, your outlook,  your attitude, your contentment.

The hard lesson is learning that this is the case, and living a fulfilling life nonetheless. Keeping the golden memories of that handful of sunshine, knowing that you are richer for it, and trusting that more sunshine is in the forecast.

It's a hell of a way to run a railroad.

I lived with my soulmate for over 5 years when my sunbeam slipped away. The possibility of this lesson had never hit me before, and I didn't know what to make of it. It's been almost four years since then, and I'm only just starting to understand it. In the earliest days of my darkness, a very good friend gave me this advice: "Sometimes things happen that look so dreadful and isolating when you're living through them, but later in life you realize that much joy came only because they happened." It was meager consolation at the time, but stuck with me.

So, now I consider myself immensely rich. Rich because of those years when I was swept up in following my heart. Richer still because that soulmate (yes, I maintain that we are still soulmates) is now my unconditional best friend, and our friendship would never have grown so deep in that previous time. And richest of all, because even if I can't help still feeling the way I felt ten years ago, life is still beautiful—more beautiful than ever. And that's an ultimate triumph.