Ice Storms of the Heart

The blue flame of defeat burns brightest.

The coldest winter I ever spent was a fall in New Jersey. 

Just three months ago, I had bought a one-way ticket to New Mexico, with a quiet hope of not returning.

I had checked myself into a rehab clinic for over a month, and hit the road to explore the US Southwest for another month.  For the first time in a very long time, I felt strangely at home in a foreign place. 

However my past was calling me back to deal with those loose ends that seek to bind us with their grip on our progress.

I was leaving the fair weather of San Francisco, and came back to New Jersey with a frigid tale between my legs, as a freak October ice storm pummelled trees along with my spirit.

That night I came back to the empty apartment that my ex and I had to leave.   There wasn’t an ecstatic dog waiting to greet me, or the sound of laughter from a woman I was trying to forget.

All of my past progress and soul-expansive adventures imploded at that dark moment, under the immense emotional weight of an apartment that had sheltered me with its canopy of comfortably-numb defeat the past 2 years. 

I crumbled.  All I wanted to feel was oblivion.

I immediately checked the black box where my ex and I kept our cannabis…score!

My ex was also gracious enough to leave an open condom wrapper in the garbage.   

This wasn’t my wrapper…so needless to say I was a little surprised.  (Months later I found out that the condom wasn’t used for what I thought it had been)

I had been home for less than an hour, and my ship was already wrecked in a riptide of shallow degradation.

I thought: ”God, what are you trying to tell me?”

Is this a sign I should get out of this place, or stay and deal with my issues?

It turns out God wasn’t trying to tell me anything.  God was only listening, and waiting to see how I would respond under the tests before me.

I had felt supported by the universe just a day ago, and now I felt like I was a victim of its conspiracy.

The following years that ensued were my life’s fog of war. 

Our road to hell can be paved with others’ good intentions if we aren’t intentional

about where we want our road to lead.

After a week of being alone in my apartment, my ex became distressed that I wouldn’t be ok and reached out to my uncle without my knowledge.   He called me and asked me to stay with him and his girlfriend for a while.

I moved in with them, and felt like a pitied refugee. 

After a few months, I was asked nicely to leave, and told my uncle I didn’t have a place yet, so I would have to move back with my ex.

I didn’t have much pride in those days, as I was just trying to survive by seeking refuge with familiar faces.  When I moved back with my ex, the enabling, co-dependent cycle continued. 

We would keep numbing ourselves daily, ignoring the fact that we would never love each other the same way again.  Eventually this active denial was too brutal for either of us to bear, so I finally moved out to find my own place.

I moved back to the same town where my uncle and girlfriend lived.  Like a dog who’s been beat to much, I was always trying to please another master instead of using my own instincts to hunt.

My saving grace: I had learned how to be a wanderer all my life and be independent since I was a child.   As much as I didn’t always cope well, I often enjoyed my own company.

I felt like I was on my feet again, and in my heart I knew I would find a way to inner peace. 

I could live anywhere at that point, as long as it was on my terms.

Soon new people would come into my life to test my notion of independence.

I knew I could trust myself, or so I thought. Could I trust anyone else?

Don’t compromise. Seek 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵.