You’re welcome. For the trip to Italy, because who doesn’t want the sensual brooding landscape where fruit doesn’t just ripen it saturates the air with honeyed dew, drizzles into your hair, softens your skin and your soul. Where you become the rolling hills, the vibrant piazza, the light captured in stained glass —where there is beauty inside of ruin, even the shards of ruin you carry somewhere secret.
If you’ve missed the last two musings we’re into our second installment of the Drive In Series; my assignment of movies which brilliantly illustrate emotional truths. The kind of learning COOL teachers give you in the summer, forgive me to those of you who are working with me privately and have been served up something less low key. But for the rest of you lucky ducks we are chatting today about a little film called Call Me by Your Name. Great title, n’es pas? —alluding to a secret relationship between two young men who fall in love for the first time, but not just puppy crush, rather the kind of love we all wish to fall into. Kindred spirit, mind melding with the one who sees the world how you want to or need to see it; the sensual passionate kind that eludes language and logic, sparks the night air. A sacred cave carved into a secluded hillside, a getaway car.
BIG LOVE, Babies.
And then some catastrophic heart break.
Aren’t I supposed to be LOVE POSITIVE? Did I mean to make you cry when the sun was shining?
And the answer is yes.
Yes, cause of that dumb rule that I didn’t even make up you guys, seriously.
YOU HAVE TO FEEL IT TO HEAL IT.
Not all big loves end in tragedy. Many are the stories we tell and retell. The cute old folks holding each other’s hands on a park bench. Some are touching without being quite as condescending to folks of a certain age.
But sometimes the thing you fear happening —happens. The World plays a big stupid meanie and effs it up. The World hefts soul crushing pressure onto the one you love, or scares them into doing stupid stupid stuff that makes you sad. Maybe they never learned how to love themselves or let themselves love. They quit choosing you. Just like that.
Cue the Drew Berrymore SCREAM. I mean sincerely. Scream it out with me because that SUCKS. But you know what takes the moment of acute anguish and LOCKS YOU THERE FOR ALL OF ENTERNITY RELIVING IT AS AN INFINITE LOOP OF HEARTBREAK AND SUFFERING AND LOSS?
Avoiding it does.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooo.
Don’t leave me.
Don’t do me like that.
It’s either SCREAM or you grow the very cause of your suffering. You contribute to THE cycle at large in the world while living out your own.
Cue the scene where the Professor sits with his son who has been broken up with by the older exchange student he has fallen in love with, because of family pressures to be a NORMAL boy, as in heterosexual (circa 1983). Dad has not been told the special nature of the boys’ friendship but Dad is no dummy. Instead he differentiates his from the common response. It would be easy to dismiss this relationship. It would be easy to say that it was something passing or a phase. To overlook or minimize or drop down a haunting lie “It’s for the better”. But he does not. He does NOT sweep his son’s heartbreak under the rug. I am not such a parent. That is the gem here Friend. You have something special. A once in a lifetime LOVE. And you need to know it, honour it, and take the time to grieve the loss of it. Or you will become numb, to joy, to love. Clinically you will become avoidant or attachment disordered. But we all know what it means. Pain hurts. But denial of pain keeps the hurt alive. And shame for pain, well that buries it where you can’t even see it making all of the decisions for you *cue 1000 reasons another relationship can’t work.
We all need that Dad. Even if we have to be him for ourselves. Validate the pain and the loss and get behind it with love and understanding and compassion and patience. It doesn’t always break but breaking your own heart first, or theirs, or walking around with the shard of glass embedded in your wound just keeps the wound from closing.
Ruin becomes the landscape.
Your story matters. Your hurt matters, and so does your loss.
When we heal we create a space for beauty and treasure and stories that end in a villa by the sea with magic in the sea foam and light caught in the coloured glass.
This week to come we’ll be seeing the signs in Silver Linings Playbook with Bradley and Jennifer and De Niro.
Melted M & M’s and summer nights.
— Love Erin
P.S. 2021 I am bringing on the love. I’ll be featured in a podcast all about better loving, from healing your broken heart to intentional dating to creating a relationship that thrives, and I’ll be launching a sister site for all of you relationship and love enthusiasts, with all kinds of insights and offerings. Stay tuned!
P.P.S. One of the kindest things you can do for me is to share my writing. If you enjoyed today’s Monday Musing and know someone else who would please forward it to a friend.
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