It turns out that this business of writing a love autobiography is even more challenging than I originally anticipated. I looked back on the pictures of my childhood and youth, but they don’t really speak to me in any sort of coherent, impelling way. It’s mostly nostalgia and reminiscence that comes to mind. My professorial brain is engaged, but feels inadequate to the task. My poetic sensibilities are dormant. The elusive key seems to be the ability to evoke a productive reflection, but I haven’t quite mastered that skill.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by the absence of any deeper feelings of love and compassion, since I have mostly viewed my childhood as a time of hurt and disappointment. I remember all too well the slings and arrows, but not the gifts and roses. Perhaps also, I am relying too much on feeling which, after all, is merely one component of love, and not necessarily the most significant.
I recognize in myself a longing for that kind of warm, embracing, secure, loving attention, which is more about parental love than anything, but parental love is mixed up with parental punishment in my psyche, and I was never quite able to sort the two out during my youth. In retrospect, my thrill-seeking and intense yearning to be a member of the in crowd might have been my way of substituting sensation for affection.
I went through a long period of wanting to be out of my family all together, to disassociate myself, to cease caring to know anything at all about my family’s lives, and to live a life that was unknown to them. It was a desire to do all the forbidden things, to break free of the stultifying norms of obedience that stifled me and hounded my waking hours. This, I recognize, I have not forgiven and feel still feel some bitterness about. I couldn’t of done anything different at the time, as my psychiatrist is fond of pointing out, but it still leaves me with a deficit, or a hollowness, when it comes to love.
I think to myself, the most obvious way to explorer my love history is to understand my marriage since that marriage occupied almost half of my lifetime. But that feels like much too great an undertaking. Lord knows, I have plumbed the depths of my childhood traumas incessantly, but perhaps there’s a final step, and maybe that step has to do with forgiveness.
The heart of the matter - Don Henley
I got the call today
That I didn't wanna hear
But I knew that it would come
An old, true friend of ours was talkin' on the phone
She said you'd found someone
And I thought of all the bad luck,
and the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside love's open door
Make us throw off our contentment
and beg for something more?
I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again
I've been tryin' to get down
to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about...forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore
Ah...these times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
and people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
Ah...the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They're the very things - we kill I guess...
Pride and competition
cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
you know it doesn't keep me warm
I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you, baby
And the more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I'd figured out
I have to learn again
I've been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter
But everything changes
and my friends seem to scatter
But I think it's about...forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if, you don't love me anymore
There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down, you know they hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you baby; cause' life goes on
If you keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside, baby
I've been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me
I've been tryin' to get down
to the heart of the matter
Because the flesh will get weak
and the ashes will scatter
So I'm thinkin' about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if, you don't love me...
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, you don't love me anymore...
Beautifully said. And, paradoxically, out of that shadow came a kind and gentle spirit and a life-time of trying to understand and help others. Maybe that's the important autobiography ... how, in spite of all the other things, did you become you? What light called, and calls, you forward?
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