Journaling: Out with the Cold

I was stuck and had been for a while. So, I went deeper in myself to find the answer.

Then, I had an epiphany on the last day of the 2016 Gregorian calendar.

It arrived with nirvana as its companion. It was short-lived.

Freedom happens in the moments.

But I digress.

In 2013, I left my door open. I didn’t mean to leave it open. I thought I firmly shut it to outsiders. In fact, up until that time, I’d spent five years living among strangers who decided to live the transient, closed-door lifestyle, too.

When you open your door, others feel the warmth – they want to be near you. You know that saying, “She wears her heart on her sleeve,” that saying is close to the truth. When you’re open, outsiders, like scofflaws, want to steal a ride on your beat. Their broken hearts can’t find the rhythm, so they follow yours.

It would be alright if they wanted to dance, but they don’t know how.

They invite you into their lives to share their stories. You listen to their hurt, but they don’t hear themselves opening their wounds to you instead of their heart.

They don’t see they’ve survived a near-fatal moment that’s now behind them. Instead, they keep the pain as a badge of honor instead of depositing it into the annals of the human condition.

“What doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger” (Nietzsche’s maxim -Twilight of the Idols) is what they believe. Maybe if they would consider the rest of the aphorism “In life’s school of war…” They wouldn’t be so cavalier about wearing their hardship as a badge of honor. Instead, it’s who they’ve become due to the battle – not the struggle itself.

Anyone who continually relives their horror story surely will not be encouraged by it. It’s just the opposite. Reliving a challenging time is like going into a theatre to watch a film; you sit there when the lights turn up. Once the lights dim, you watch the movie again. You know the outcome. You see what happens. You may watch again because you think you missed a few parts, but the ending never changes. It never changes. So, what does one gain by reliving those moments?

Honor?

A near-fatal experience doesn’t deserve a medal, nor should it be pinned to your chest in place of your broken heart.

But they do not hear and continue to share what is now the soundtrack of their lives—a cacophony of a shattering heart that served as a force field, keeping all others at a distance.

And I was becoming one of those people.

About 13 days before the year’s end, I dreamt of the other half of my star-crossed love affair. We walked down Court Street in the County of Kings with arms forming a sideways cross on each other’s back. Men were yelling at us from Columbia University’s dormitory.

UPDATE 042724: Although Columbia University isn’t in Kings County, my subconscious must have contained the following trivia. I read Columbia was initially King’s College by the royal charter of King George II of England). However, unknown to me at the time, Columbia University also had a Brooklyn campus for students at Seth Low Junior College (1928-1936
[http://www.columbia-current.org/seth_low_junior_college.html Columbia for Jews? The Untold Story of Seth Low Junior College – The Current (columbia-current.org)and Gatecrashers Ep. 1: Columbia and Its Forgotten Jewish Campus – Tablet Magazine.]
The Columbia University Junior College shared space with the Brooklyn Law School, whose dormitory was near Court Street, where we walked.

Ignoring all the distractions, we continued to walk down the road. I turned to my friend and said, “I love ya, kid,” and we continued our walk in the sunshine.

For almost two weeks, that dream haunted me. I searched to find meaning.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, I was unstuck.