Sitting quietly and look at the debris of my younger years

Dear Bloggers,

Doesn't a new start sound great? When life becomes difficult, you have failed several times, you have messed up a perfect relationship, and you are bored of your job, your house, your friends, and family; a new start sounds exciting when we find ourselves stuck in the mediocrities of life. We all have a past, and for some, it may be memorable, for others it may be horrible. Whatever the past looks like the enemy majors in causing us to indulge in what was. I am afforded the opportunity to have healthy discussions with many people from the young to old, mature and immature, strong and weak but what I recognize is from the least to the greatest the most common issues among them all is letting go of the past.

 I spent or should I say "Wasted" a lot of time and energy on what was, and what could have been. But I am grateful for the present and the bright future that I have in front of me and it's there for you too. I want to encourage you to take your time through this plan and to commit to stop looking back on all the negatives in your life. Our memory is not the enemy, but the way we use our memory will determine the damage. When I look back on life, it is for only moments of seeing what has happened and what it did to me and how I pickede it up how it has brought me through. As you are on the journey with me, I want you to understand that a new start is available to you no matter where you've been or what you have done. Maybe you should clean up the debris and give yourself a brand new start. There is always a moment for new beginnings, and now I look at every disappointment, hurt and pain as an opportunity to birth something new. We do ourselves a great injustice, when we keep looking back negatively.

 
In my life I faced many challenges that already started when I was still young and I lost the first one that I really loved. All of a sudden it struck me and a voice whispered that I should go home. In my head I knew that something has badly happened to someone. The closer I got to home the more I got the feeling that something was wrong with my girlfriend. I kept seeing images of an operation theatre and she called me. This wasn't a bad dream when I came home my mum was sitting at the table and she was crying. My dad was looking sad and said: Listen Son “I've got bad news to tell you.” I reacted I think I already know that she passed away. After the funeral I had to go back to school but nothing reached my brain as I was living in a bubble. I lived as someone who was heavily sedated. After I messed up my final exams I got a letter from the government to join the army.
 

In the beginning I did not like to be there. Ok, I did my best but not my utmost. Untill the moment I met the corporal that had served in Lebanon. He told me that this was just the simple live and out there you did not know what the next day would bring. Loosing buddies and being shot at. His story was fascinating me and it inspired me to be a better soldier. At an exercise in Germany, we had to load a bridge and we ran into a few supporters of Rote Armee Fraction, or at least so they claimed. I came face to face with one of these figures. My motto was to capture or kill him. But killing someone was not allowed in peacetime. in a blow with the butt of my rifle, I disarmed my opponent and went into a handbattle with him. I decided to silence the screaming and slapping bastard. I knocked him out and tied him up and hung him on the outside of the bridge. And then I chased his companion into the hands of the other guys. When my freund woke up he screamed like a lean suckling pig. We had to take them down and they were handed over to the local authorities. I was fined for my actions when we were back at base. I didn't care as I had the feeling that I did the right thing and no one got really hurt. Jus t another scar on my face and on my reputatioin. I was selected to go to Lebanon but the government stopped the project.

I was all of sudden being transferred to an other part of the country a bit closer to home. I needed to fit in the group of soldiers and go with them on excersises building bridges man the radio and securing the place. This was part of my life for the coming months not understanding wat the plan was untill the Sergeant Major called me in his office and told me to shut the door behind me. The only thing that crossed my mind was that I had done something silly again in the last cou;ple of days as I was bored like hell. He send me on a mission to Germany to do something for a special unit. I had to dress up like a regular Jake. I got some train tickets and some cash for my expences. In Germany I had to ring a number and I would get an address to go to meet an other guy who worked for the same network. I was surprised that no one really knew what this group was doing. The operation was strange and I had to take a British guy back with me as he was captured in the Eastern part of Germany which was still splitted up at that time.. I travelled back with the British guy called Rowan and we had to behave like tourists to get back to The Netherlands. Just at he first trainstation we got off the train and I dailed the number that I got from the German guy. Rowan was picked up by a British driver and they drove of. I called the number that and told them that the mission was completed and I could go home. Later I learned that this was a mission to bring servicemen and women back home.

After my Army days I had to fit in the normal life again I missed the militairy stuff in a way. On the other hand I was happy that I had survived everything that came on my path.I stated a job as a dishwasher in a local restaurant and had ambitions to grow in this business. And I did first of all in a local bar and a small disco. I rented myself out as a waiter and bartender and I had a lot of fun doing this. During the wintertime I worked in factories to keep the bills being paid. I had a few relationships during this times but they ended not from my side. Maybe they did not really love me.
 

At certain moment I met my wife and she could live with me and all my funny ways. Of course as in every relationship there are ups and downs. I started a job as a waiter on passengership but at first it was not succcesfull things from my past brought me on my knees. I had to stop and after a period of getting my life together. When I was ready again I took a job as a bartender on a small cruiseliner the crew was great and the food was crap. Heavily drinking after the shift solved a lot of the problems. 

After a while I moved back home and got a job on the DFDS ferries on the lines between Asterdam and Newcastle and Hamburg and Harwich. During this period I tripped and fell down the stairs at home and do the crash I lost my balance and speech for several months . Do to hard work and help from family and friends I recovered almost fully and after a few years I was back on board. I did many jobs during these years on board and ended up in the Guest Service Centre. when my health deteriorated and I was forced to look for another job according to my specialist, a reorganization had to take place and my job was at stake. After my discharge, I decided to become a bus driver in public transport after about six months. It changed my outlook on life. We are enjoying our moments together in our own way. I am sitting behind my computer writing my blog and my head is traveling down memory lane.

 
Not that bad I think for a regular guy who never got his high school diploma but learned a lot on the way to a regular life with a regular job. No I am nothing special to you but for the ones I love I am their special specalist who is happy most of the time. 

And it doesn't matter if it is dark out there we have to believe that there is always the Sun to come out. Every good day is called yesterday.

We were made to move forward, and it's time to stop looking back.

The Old Sailor,

Once I was overrun by love

Dear Bloggers,

Every one knows that Valentine’s Day is the day that everyone declares their love for that special person in their life. Receiving flowers from the person who has won your heart on this day is always special, and when a girl receives an amazing bouquet of red roses on Valentines Day she’s riding high for the rest of the day.  It’s great to make someone feel that happy.

The feeling of being in love is the best. When you meet someone and have that instant spark. You hit it off right from the start and get butterflies in your stomach every time you see them. When hours of being together feel like minutes. When you can get an hour of sleep and still feel high on life the next day. Not to mention the blissful feeling of certainty when we feel like you’ve met “the one” (finally!). You start fantasizing about the future and are convinced that the other person is on the same page you are. And you should tell her about this roller coaster of feelings but your bloody brains are blocking. And no I am not a shy guy and yes she is still a real friend.

And then it ended for several years, I was a real ass and yes she stopped being my friend. It broke my heart and I was devastated. As always my life continued and in the years that passed I met my lovely wife. Yes we are together for many years and our love is still going strong. Although I have many things on my mind I am thinking back about these wonderful times of my youth.

And I was not only heartbroken, but shocked because it seemed so right and I wouldn’t understand what went wrong. Contrary to what romantic comedies may have us believe, this is actually fairly common and not necessarily a bad thing. I know that is not comforting if you are in the pain of a break-up, but stay with me because understanding why the one you thought was going to be forever ended may offer you some relief.

What I have seen in my own surroundings over and over again is that they met someone who has all the qualities that they have dreamed about, and they are so happy when they are with that person. And then the relationship ends often in a very abrupt and harsh way or because of uncontrollable or unchangeable circumstances. It almost feels like the person is literally being taken away. Well they kind of are, and for a good reason, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Why does a relationship that seemed to feel so right end?  So that you can truly see what is so amazingly “right” about yourself.

I’ll try to explain this…

Just as people are here to teach us where we have judgments and unresolved issues, they are also here to illuminate what is so amazing about ourselves that we are not acknowledging, owning and experiencing. If you have been with someone you thought was the one, you probably found certain qualities about him or her incredibly attractive.  You also may have said, “She brought out the best in me!” Exactly. She did bring out the best of you, but it’s your job to keep it going. They fulfilled their spiritual agreement with you by attracting you with their awesome qualities to reflect to you what you are not seeing about yourself. And by triggering the best inside of you so you could have the experience of your awesomeness. But it wasn’t their job to stay.

When she was around I felt beautiful and confident. I consistently told her that and did things that made her feel happy. And then all of a sudden she had a boyfriend, Inside I was a wreck and my wounded heart was burning of jealousy and I couldn’t tell her. She loved him so much and treated him with love, respect and kindness. Now that he is gone, her confidence has plummeted and she is desperately attempting to figure out what she did wrong. In the same period I was a ….. and she told me to take a hike.

She did not do anything wrong (and neither did I if I can relate to any part of her story). Sometimes the real life sometimes “reassigns” a person to support you in fully integrating what they were reflecting and/or catalyzing inside of you. And to protect you from a dependent relationship. For example, if you were really attracted to their creativity or drive, one of their gifts to you was to inspire you to reconnect with your creativity or drive. Or as in my case, before this friendship I never felt beautiful and I had very little confidence in the fact that a girl could love me for what I was.  My ex girlfriend made a gap in my brain that I had been just another empty boyfriend for nearly half a years time. In order for her to fully step on my heart and break it into thousands of pieces.

We cannot see in another what we don’t have inside ourselves. If you feel like the person brought out a quality of yours like creativity, you are incorrect. They merely triggered what has been always inside of you. No one else can make us anything that we aren’t already. If the person was still there, you would not be as motivated to be the things you miss about them or the version of you that you were with them.

Remember no one is the “one” because everyone is the one. Every single person you have a relationship with (and I don’t just mean romantically) is a soul mate because they are teaching your soul lessons. We all are mirrors and teachers for each other to learn our life’s program.

I understand that nothing feels quite as devastating as not being able to be with the one you thought was the “one.” But this is just short-term devastation. What would be devastating long-term is never truly integrating the amazing qualities you saw or experienced with or in that other person.

The purpose of any relationship is for our learning and to grow into love, both for another and for ourselves. It is not necessarily that you have to be together forever, although it makes us happy, or it fulfills emptiness in our lives. I encourage you to move through the pain and get to the purpose of your relationship.  Begin to see how it served you.

You can only bring out the best in you.  It’s there believe me and stop looking for it in the eyes or arms of another. And when you bring out the best in yourself then you will be able to share it with someone who brings out the best in themselves, too. No more wondering if someone else is the “one”.

You are the one you have been looking for.

The Old Sailor,

when falling in love is a strange part of life

Dear Bloggers,

In my younger years I haven't been the greatest Casanova. I was not a very quiet person and I can be funny sometimes but as soon it came to the feelings thing something made me insecure and yes I spoke my mind and not always in the best way. Some moments I was pretty drunk and other moments I could be shy or absolutely not being focused on the signals. Somehow I managed to miss out a lot of these occasions and yes some them were really pretty. Anyway I ended up in a couple of relationships and with all these girls I was absolutely serious. I simply could not stop that particular loving feeling and my whole world got different on those moments. It feels like your brain is spinning and I could not get enough of it.

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to feel so relieved. When you got your heart broken for the first time, you can’t imagine loving someone else again or having someone else loving you. You worry about your ex girlfriend finding love before you do, and of course they did. You worried about the fact that you will end up being damaged goods. And then it happens. Someone else loves you and you can sleep well again at night.

The second time you fall in love with someone, it’s going to feel different. The first time felt like a dream almost. You were untouched, untainted by anyone. You accepted love with wide open arms and desperation. “Love me, love me, love me!” So you did. And then it fell apart and left you shocked to the core. You realized that people could be cruel and break your heart into a million peaces. You realized that people could stop meaning the sweet things they said to you just yesterday. So when you go into it again, you’re going to keep in mind everything that you’ve learned. You’re going to say, “Love me, love me, love me…until you don’t. In which case, I would like some advance warning. Thanks!”

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to compare it to your first love. That’s okay. That’s natural. You’re going to be studying the new love with judgement and awareness. “My ex never liked fast food. Why the hell does this one eat so much fries and burgers?!” Discovering that you have the ability to love multiple people who are different and feel different is initially very shocking. Loving an unfamiliar body will leave you disoriented and make you feel the need of a map. That’s okay too. That’s to be expected. Just ask the new love for directions. Otherwise you might do somethings wrong and get lost in a frustrating swamp of emotional trouble.

The second or even a third time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to suffer from a truckload of amnesia. You’re going to poke and prod at your lover’s body and be like, “Wait, how do I do this again? How do I love you? What is happening to my brain it's getting totally into the mixed up mode again. I think it starts with us having a moment together in some pub or cafe having a coffee or tea, right?” It’s going to feel scary at first. Falling in love is sort of like riding a horse though. You never really forget.

This second time you’ll be a more sane person. Your first love is when you get all of your insanity out. You behave like an insane monster because your mind is freaking out about all these new powerful feelings. These bloody hormones are gearing up in your body and the butterflies in your stomach are untamable.
By the second time, however, you have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. It’s by no means perfect. The insanity will make a comeback at some point. “Peek a boo. I’m here! Hope you didn’t forget about me!” But you can usually shoo it away after a while. At least that is what you're hoping for. 

At the third time you should be a trained professional and your heart has some scars from former loves and you are wearing the medals of this battlefield called love. When you fall in love with someone, you will learn on the way and with a second or third lover you hopefully have better sex. This is pure my opinion so do not pin me down on this.

Anyway no matter if it is the first, second or third one that you fall in love with someone it will still be exciting and new, you might even talk about moving in together or marriage. At a certain moment it will start feeling more “adult.” You have no idea what adult love actually is but you think it involves making a cup of tea for each other in the morning and giving her breakfast in bed as it feels like something romantic. maybe even getting a place of our own with a dog and some cats. 

This is how you start of making a happy family home. I got settled with the fourth person I fell in love with, the other three left me with a broken heart and mixed feelings about if it would be all worth it, because that’s what you do! The first person I was in love with would never have stayed with me as she never ever really fell in love with me.

The fourth time will not be the first time. The first time is an insane magical life gift that you can never reclaim. But that’s okay. The second time is more real anyway. The third time can involve some amazing love. And the fourth time is still going strong for already twenty three years in a row. It is the best one I ever had and I am still in love the flame is still burning.

The Old Sailor,

Looking for the "One" is useless

Dear Bloggers,

My life had many ups and downs and also my love live has been all over the place. Every break up is different and from all of them I've learned something. I gave up love for a while as I was so heartbroken and did not believe in relationships anymore. I cried my heart out and could not se the future at that point and fully out of the blue, I met my lovely wife. And yes we are still beautiful people eventhough we aged and got wrinkles our hearts are still bouncing. I am still madly in love and she is the best I have. let's hope that it will last forever.

 
The feeling of being in love is the best. When you meet someone and have that instant spark. You hit it off right from the start and get butterflies in your stomach every time you see them. When hours of being together feel like minutes. When you can get an hour of sleep and still feel high on life the next day. Not to mention the blissful feeling of certainty when we feel like you’ve met “the one” (finally!). You start fantasizing about the future together and are convinced that the other person is on the same page you are. It went on for weeks and in your opinion life couldn't get any better.
And then it ended.

And you were not only heartbroken, but shocked because it seemed so right and you don’t understand what went wrong.
Contrary to what romantic comedies made us believe, this is actually fairly common and not necessarily a bad thing.

I know that is not comforting if you are in the pain of a break-up, but stay with me because understanding why the one you thought was going to be forever ended may offer you some relief.

What I have seen over and over again with friends is that they meet someone who has all the qualities that they have dreamed about, and they are so happy when they are with that person. And then the relationship ends often in a very abrupt way or because of uncontrollable or unchangeable circumstances. It almost feels like the person is literally being taken away. Well they kind of are – and for a good reason, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Why does a relationship that feels so right end? So that you can truly see what is so amazingly “right” about you.

I’ll explain…

Just as people are here to teach us where we have judgments and unresolved issues, they are also here to illuminate what is so amazing about ourselves that we are not acknowledging, owning and experiencing. If you have been with someone you thought was the one, you probably found certain qualities about him or her incredibly attractive. You also may have said, “She brought out the best in me!” Exactly. He or she did bring out the best of you, but it’s your job to keep it going. They fulfilled their spiritual agreement with you by attracting you with their awesome qualities to reflect to you what you are not seeing about yourself. And by triggering the best inside of you so you could have the experience of your awesomeness. But it wasn’t their job to stay.

When she was around I felt beautiful and confident. She consistently told me that and she did things that made me feel that way. I loved her so much and treated her with love, respect and kindness. Now that she was gone, my confidence has tumbled to it's lowest point ever. and I was desperately attempting to figure out what I did wrong.
She did not do anything wrong (and neither did you if you were can relate to any part of her story). Sometimes the Universe sometimes “reassigns” a person to support you in fully integrating what they were reflecting inside of you, and to protect you from a co-dependent relationship. For example, if you were really attracted to their creativity or drive, one of their gifts to you was to inspire you to reconnect with your creativity or drive.

 
Or as in my case, before our relationship I never felt really beautiful and had very little self-confidence. I just filled a void that had been empty for nearly 5 years. In order for her to fully step into her own beauty and confidence she is now faced with the opportunity to fill the void herself.

We cannot see in another what we don’t have inside ourselves. If you feel like the person brought out a quality of yours like creativity, you are incorrect. They merely triggered what has been sleeping inside of you. No one else can make us do anything that we aren’t already. If the person were still there, you would not be as motivated to be the things you miss about them or the version of you that you were with them.

Remember no one is the “one” because everyone is the one. Every single person you have a relationship with (and I don’t just mean that romantically) is a soul mate because they are teaching you soul lessons. We all are mirrors and teachers for each other to learn our life and write new pages in our book of life.

I understand that nothing feels quite as devastating as not being able to be with the one you thought she or he was the “one.” What would be devastating is never truly integrating the amazing qualities you saw or experienced with or in that other person. You were not rejected, their future was just reassigned.

The purpose of any relationship is for our learning and to grow in love. Both for another and for ourselves. It is not necessarily to be together forever, as this is not realistic as some lose the love of their live due to an accident or a terrible disease. It should make us happy, or fulfill any void in our lives. I encourage you to move through the pain that you have and get to the purpose of your relationship. Begin to see how it served you and learn something from it.

Trust that although the physical presence of a person may not be there anymore, the qualities you loved about them belong to you. What you love about them is still inside of you.

You bring out the best in you. It’s there. Stop looking for it in the eyes or arms of another. And when you bring out the best in you then you will be able to share it with someone who brings out the best in themselves, too. 

No more wondering if someone else is the “one”. You are the one you have been looking for.



The Old Sailor,

I was thinking about leaving

Dear Bloggers,

As I read through the web for conversations, questions, ideas about depression, I am struck by how many people who write to forums and blogs are desperately asking for help not for their own depression but for that of their spouses, partners, loved ones. So often, they report bewilderment. They feel stunned to find anger and rejection in place of love. How can it be that the person I have known so well is suddenly different, alien, hostile and wants to break out of the relationship that is so precious? 
 

What is this longing to leave that so many depressed people feel? I have no simple answer to that, but I can describe my own tortured experience with an almost irresistible drive to break out and start a new life.
I spent many years feeling deeply unsettled and unhappy in ways I could not understand. Flaring up in anger at my wife and two great young girls became a common occurrence. I’d carry around resentments about being held back and unsatisfied with my life, fantasizing about other places, other women, other lives I could and should be leading. 
 

My usual mode was to bottle up my deepest feelings, making it all the more likely that when they surfaced it would be in weird and destructive ways. I’d seethe with barely suppressed anger, lash out in rage and, of course, deny angrily that anything was wrong when confronted by my wife.

I was often living on the edge, but there were two threads of awareness I could hold onto that restrained me invisibly. One was the inner sense that until I faced and dealt with whatever was boiling inside me, I would only transplant that misery to a new place, a new life and a new lover. However exciting I might imagine it would be to walk into that new world, I knew in my heart that it would only be a matter of time before the same problems re-emerged.
The other was a question I kept asking myself : “What is it that I am leaving for? ” What was this great future and life that I would be stepping into? Could I even see it clearly? More often than not, the fantasy portrayed a level of excitement I was missing. Crazy thoughts or a very lively fantasy I would call it now.

Some buried part of me knew that a life based on getting high on non-stop brain-blowing excitement wasn’t a life at all. Maybe it wasn’t alcohol or drugs that lured me, but it was surely the promise of intense and thrilling experiences, the opening scene of an adventure film without the need to wait for the complicated plot to unravel. There was no real alternative woman out there waiting for me, only a series of fantasies with easy gratification, never the hard part of dealing with a complicated human being in a sustained relationship. And inwardly I knew, I would still face the fears, depression and paralysis of will that had plagued me for so long.

That bit of consciousness kept me from breaking everything up and leaving the wonderful family that I’m blessed with.

So just imagine what my wife was going through. She had to face the rejection of my anger at the deepest levels. At the worst of it, she had to hear me telling her she wasn’t enough for me, that I needed more than she could give. And the tension and pain between us, the frequent rage that I felt, spilled into the lives of my children in ways that slowly and painfully were to emerge over time. 

That is the hardest part of talking about this now, to grasp how my closest loved ones disappeared from awareness into the haze of my own self-hatred, my own feeling of emptiness that I was desperately trying to fill. I had no idea how my behavior spread in its impact, like widening circles in water, to touch so many around me I’ll continue with this theme and try to get at what can be done or said to someone possessed of a longing to leave.

The longing to leave one’s intimate partner brings out something that isn’t much discussed in descriptions of depression. It is the active face of the illness. We often focus on the passive symptoms, the inactivity, the isolation, sense of worthlessness, disruption of focused thought, lack of will to do anything. But paradoxically the inner loss and need can drive depressed people to frenzied action to fill the great emptiness in the center of their lives. They may long to replace that inadequate self with an imagined new one that makes up for every loss. 
 

My experience with this phase of illness occurred when I had only limited awareness of the hold depression had on me. That may be a key to understanding the dynamic and how to respond to someone in the grip of this drive to turn life upside down. Unhappy without knowing why, I had to find an explanation, and the easiest way to do that was to look outward. I could only see my present life, my wife, my work as holding me back, frustrating my deepest desires. In effect, I was blaming everyone but me for my misery. In that state, I could only focus on the promise of leaving, finding a new mate, new work, new everything.

Every suggestion my wife might make that there was something wrong with me only brought the angriest denial. Every time she said how much she loved me only felt like a demand that I stay stuck in this unfulfilling life and do what she wanted me to do. I knew so clearly that I was not the problem, certainly not sick but for the first time on the verge of escaping into the exciting life I should have been living all along.

There is something very close to the power of addiction in the fantasy of escape. I found it almost impossible to see through the dreams of a new life. It meant so much – my survival as a person seemed to be at stake. Unaware of the full effect of depression, blocking out what my wife and others were trying to tell me, I inflicted a lot of pain on my family, thinking that I had to be brutally honest in order to save myself. Fortunately, as I noted in the last post on this subject, I had been through enough work in therapy to have glimmers of the truth, and that helped me step back from the brink.

I’m big on offering advice, but the potentially devastating impacts of depressed people on those closest to them leads me to go a bit beyond just reflecting on what I’ve been through. I see it different now my wife is stuck in a similar situation that has caused a burn out due to her boss.

If you’re trying to deal with the sudden transformation of an intimate partner, get help, starting with friends and family. You’ve likely felt such a deep assault and wound that it would be easy to get lost in the sheer humiliation, hurt and anger of the experience, searching for what you’ve done wrong, what you could do or say to set things right. That’s a trap set for you by the voice of depression. That voice tries to persuade you, just as it has persuaded your loved one, that it’s your fault. Not true. It’s your partner’s illness that’s at the root of it. 

Those closest to you and your partner have doubtless noticed something strange and may have been hurt as well by new behavior. That will remind you that you’re not alone in this. And remember that you can’t cure someone else with your words and love. They only backfire. At most, you can help your partner gradually gain awareness. It will take the combined influence of you and many others to get a depressed person to start seeing a different explanation for what’s wrong. Only your partner can do the heavy lifting. Only your partner can experience the inner change of thought and feeling that comes with the recognition that there is an illness to be dealt with.

I realize how different everyone’s experience is about the impact of depression on their marriage, and how desperately hard everyone works to reach what is for them the right answer about staying married or not. For me, though, it was a fantasy born of depression. I often wonder how it is, given where I began in my struggle to build a loving relationship with another human being, that my wife and I have stayed married for so long. “Marriage is survival,” I once heard someone say at a wedding, and the uncomfortable laughter in his large audience confirmed the truth of it. Despite all our struggles, we’ve managed to survive the worst of times.

For so many years, though, and long beyond adolescent dreams, I was searching obsessively not for the real work of two people always learning about each other. Depressed and full of shame at who I was, I searched desperately for someone who would make up what was missing, gifting me the worth I felt I lacked, so that I could feel like a whole person at last. I simply imagined I was falling in love. 

It would start with an attraction that soon became obsessive for a woman whose spirit and warmth I reached for instinctively to take in as my own. This was falling in love in a strangely one-sided way. I needed the responsiveness of the other person, to be sure, but only to a certain point. I can try to explain with a story, really a moment when something began to get through to my isolated mind.

I had, or imagined I had, an intense bond with K for nearly a year in my late teens. Her loving me meant everything. She was beautiful, talented and lively, and deep down I felt not just proud that she was part of my life, I felt alive and justified because of her presence. More than that, I projected into the minds of everyone I met the love of my live because such a woman loved me. That was the reality of what I needed from her, the sense of self-worth that I lacked on my own. I ignored what was clearly happening so desperate was I to believe that we would be together forever. After all, I was nothing without her. Our relationship came to end and I have been sick for days. My life was over. I promised myself not to start a relation again but to enjoy life

I was home, and we were up early, getting dressed and ready to get up for breakfast. I was avoiding deep talk. The windows were open to a fine Dutch winter morning. I was dousing my face with cold water in the bathroom as I had great hangover when suddenly I was startled by a beautiful singing voice floating in coming from the bedroom. It was a woman’s voice pouring a haunting melody into the air. It seemed to surround me, and the feeling and the sheer beauty of the tone put everything else out of my mind. I relaxed into its flow for a few still moments, and then I started to move. I had to find out where my future would start again. It seemed that I was ready for life again and I opened my heart and started a relationship again with the woman that I now call my wife. When I snapped out of my memories, I walked back to the bedroom and found my wife quietly sweeping a brush through her long blond hair.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That incredible singing – it was the most beautiful thing. Where could it have come from?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “that was just the alarm clock.”
“Just now? Just right now? I mean, it stopped a few seconds ago.”
She nodded slowly, still brushing.
“I mean … I never heard that song before.”
She smiled into the mirror. “Well… now you have.”
She finished brushing her hair. We got our clothes on and left the room. 
 

To say I crashed when she left is putting it mildly. What could happen when my sense of who I was and what I was worth in the world walked away? Gone! There was nothing left! I would start drinking heavily, fall into complete depression, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, crying a lot, burned with the obsession of having to get her back. For the second time in my life, I don't think I will survive and end up at a psychiatrist. To heal enough so that I could function. Then I’d be able to resume my obsessive quest for a woman to make me feel whole again!

And so the pattern continues for years. When I met my wife and we got married, things seemed so different. But as soon as we got past the intense early years into the time when the relationship gets real or gets broken, I picked up again the habit of obsessing over that shortcut to fulfillment. I could dream of other women, other places, other careers that would end the inner fear, emptiness and pain. It was the sort of dreaming that would always keep me from hearing the song close by. The dreams gave me a way out instead of opening up and talking to the woman who loved me about the real crisis I was in. There was always a fantasy person elsewhere who wouldn’t need all that talking and honesty!

It took me many years, but finally the escape artist in me called it quits. Those fantasies came in such abundance that I just couldn’t take them seriously anymore. Only then could I get on with the work of recovery and the work of marriage.

I understand now when my wife says to me: “Are you still in love with me and if you don't than you should leave.” I guess that she is having a hard time now.



The Old Sailor,