Wisdom from a pint-sized guru inspires a new phase in the evolution of love.
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Yesterday I cried at a Brooklyn bus stop. As I build my custom engagement ring business, I nanny part-time. While waiting patiently for the B63 I sat in the bus vestibule with my charge Toby, his best friend Corey and Corey’s nanny, Madeline, Corey shared something he had learned.
“We all have a vessel that is filled with love. When we are bullies, raise our voice or are mean to someone else, the vessel spills and all the love runs out. When we love others and pour our love into their cup the love runs over and ours fills up even more than before.”
“The moral is that if you give your happiness away, then you will be happy.”
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Corey paused, “Did you fill up someone’s cup today?”
I worked to hold back my tears. Maddie quietly asked, “Corey, what is the moral of the story?”
Corey paused again. “The moral is that if you give your happiness away, then you will be happy.”
I was stunned. This little person with his six-year-old vocabulary and six-year-old understanding of all the nuances of the English language profoundly altered my day. He’s 30 years my junior, but he put my emotional maturity to shame. When asked where he got this beautiful tale, Corey responded, “Oh I read it in a book.” What inspired me even more is that not only did read the story, but he memorized it, incorporated into his own emotional lexicon, and pulled it out for the right experience. The moment was powerful, insightful and definitely had a spiritual element. I was a bit jealous. I wish I had this down at six. It’s something I’m only beginning to learn now.
In that learning, it came to me that I had a love letter that needed writing. That it was time for me to fill someone else’s cup.
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I remember the moment you walked into the room. It’s still burned into my brain 17 years later. You’d been on a surfing expedition and walked into the beach house dripping wet, wearing red swim trunks and nothing else, the salty spray glistening in your hair. You were only passing through on your way to the kitchen but you stopped, you turned, and our eyes locked for the very first time. It still feels like yesterday.
Love at first sight is always questioned. That’s not possible. Lust, attraction, a fantasy of someone who will, on further acquaintance, fall far short of the dream. But as time moves on, my faith grows. Maybe the universe has it all figured out way before you do.
You were my first. It terrified me, shocked me, excited me, and threw me high into an emotional thundercloud that I’ve been messy at navigating. Our romance had its share of fairy tale moments. Moments I will never forget. You climbing the balcony to bring me a rose. The candle-lit dinner in your tiny apartment right off of campus. The two-hour drive to my dorm with a gorgeous bouquet. Us, asleep, arms curled around each other in the back seat of your junker in a parking lot, trying to get some sleep before you dropped me at the train station. The times you held me close and kissed away my tears. The love letters, the mixed tapes, the songs on my answering machine. And the laughter. Oh God, the laughter! My disaster of a lion mane haircut will forever be immortalized by you waking me up to the blare of “The Lion King”.
Our love affair was not smooth sailing. 18 years provides a ton of fodder for growing pains, huge mistakes, lies, fights, and unnecessary pain. In our 20’s your fraternity brother built a well-crafted lie that you cheated on me with a beautiful girl in the fellow sorority. A cruel invention crafted by a jealous man and delivered to my young, self-conscious, insecure little soul already on my way to full-blown alcoholism. I ate his tale up with a spoon. It was so much easier to digest than the truth of a never-ending love. You’d hidden your friendship with her because you knew my dangerous tendency to insecure jealousy and never wanted to create discord. I later learned you’d brought her to a dance and spent the whole night talking about me.
Also burned on my brain is the memory of us in our early 30s. The day I broke your heart. I’ve tried to make amends to you, but each time you stop me with a few slow, thoughtful words. I suspect mention of that day, the day my disease took over and smashed your heart into bits, would be detrimental to us both. I won’t forget the pain in your eyes, watching your body slump into that chair in complete and utter defeat. Watching you free fall into a spiral of pain that you didn’t deserve.
I’m crying as I write this, just as you cried on the telephone the day I told you I was sober.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again and again; I’m sorry my love. I was bottoming out. I hated myself. This deep, dark addiction had taken to me a place where each day was a chore and it was almost was too painful to breathe. How could someone cherish me when all I wanted to do was self-destruct? I felt I did not deserve your love. I didn’t have the awareness then, but I have it now. I pushed you away in the cruelest way I knew how. I took our love story with me into the hell that lived in my soul.
I broke your heart but you took the broken pieces, bonded them back together with your ferocious strength and did enough loving for the both of us.
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What kills me right now as I write this, bringing more tears but also gratitude, that you chose to love me anyway. I broke your heart but you took the broken pieces, bonded them back together with your ferocious strength and did enough loving for the both of us. Even though our romance had died, you kept the friendship solid, honest, open and true. You left the door open. You still marched on as my white knight. You let me know I could call you in the midst of any hurricane and you’d be there. And you have been. So much so, that when I finally put some days together of sobriety, you were my very first call.
◊♦◊
Corey’s story brought up so much for me. Through some mystery that only the Universe understands, we will be reunited this week and emotions are crashing through my body, much like the rough surf on our magical sandy shore. I’m only starting to learn his lesson: to make others happiness my own mission. I’ve been so self-obsessed for so long, that the idea of putting someone else first has been a completely foreign concept.
Do you know how much love I carry for you? Your friendship has been a huge rock I clung tightly to these past 18 years as the hurricane of dark childhood came crashing down around me, as I was beaten, battered and abused by myself and other’s cruel emotions. Your intelligence astounds me. Do you know how smart you are? How it leaves me breathless? How I’ve pretended not to see it all these years as it used to intimidate me? Do you know you’re the only man I’ve ever met that provides an intellectual challenge?
Do you know your strength? The beauty of it that seeps from the outside in? Do you know that the sound of your voice carries me through this life like a magical melody that I feel the heavens crafted just for me? The mere twang of your southern drawl has a physical effect on my person. Do you know the beauty of your eyes? The hazel fields of infinite magnitude that paint pictures in my soul. Do you know the depth of my love for you? That it finds no end and never will?
Corey gave me such a gift. I’ve heard this message before, but yesterday something clicked. In our fleeting conversations about our accidental upcoming reunion, you at the World Poker Tournament, me at the largest jewelry show in the US, aptly in “sin city” Vegas, you’ve commanded my attention. You’ve changed. You’re making plans and surprises. You’ve been thoughtful about the travel details. I’ve had to invest in boxes of tissues, you’ve had me crying such tears of joy. You’ve lost 20 pounds, which you joked was supposed to be a turn-on, but actually provokes a sigh of relief. Watching you slowly kill yourself with your own poison, food, has been heart-breaking. While I was on my own path of self-discovery, self-care, self-knowledge and self-love, it appears you’ve been on a journey of your own.
There — I had to stop myself. I fell back into the rabbit hole and started writing the ending to our fairy tale. But I realized, it’s not our tale. It’s yours. I’m so proud of you for going to the gym, taking your medication, reaching huge heights in your career, putting others first and being an example for me to live by. I’ve let you go not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Corey helped me realize that all I’ve wanted to do since I drew that first sober breath was to fill your love vessel. I hope I have been able to give you back even a fraction of what you’ve given to me.
It’s been the hardest thing in the world to learn how to let you go. I still haven’t completely figured it out, but that’s OK.
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I’m still in love with you. I might be until the day I die. But now that can I love myself and truly feel and experience a love for someone else, I realize true love is pretty selfless. I just want you to be happy. I want you to be cherished. To be challenged. To be adored, respected and most importantly, heard. It’s been the hardest thing in the world to learn how to let you go. I still haven’t completely figured it out, but that’s OK.
I’m excited to see you. To sit in the lazy river. To stare into those big beautiful eyes of yours. To laugh my ass off with you. To give you the space, acceptance and love to just be you.
Thank you for giving me a gift that no one on the planet has even come close to placing in my hands. Thank you for loving me even when I couldn’t love myself. Thank you for giving me faith, courage and hope. I might not be alive today without it and I definitely wouldn’t of gotten through my stormy days without your never-ending friendship. No matter what happens with us, we’ll be just fine. Our friendship has survived it all. What happens next is a mystery and I’m so glad that we’ve come together in this little magical moment of time to celebrate our victories together. You’ll always be a piece of my heart.
“To give you the SPACE, the acceptance, and love to just be you.”
This is phenomenal. So much is packed in this message. You’ve shared so much with us – thank you for being vulnerable. Keep on doing what you’re doing. Thanks for your story.
Jenny, Thank you. Your words, passion, tears, and pain touch me deeply. By the time we’ve reached this time of life, most all of us have experienced love and the loss of love. Some of us have closed down and armored ourselves. Others keep our hearts open and are willing to be wounded for love, but also open to hearing the wisdom of children as they share their inner-most thoughts while they are still innocent. May we all keep our innocence alive while we journey more deeply towards the love we are all learning how to give and receive.