I want to contact that which is real in others, but the meeting of minds never lasts. The souls who come alive to me for a little while, where do they go?
The question that seems to govern my life, a thread woven throughout every lesson and every confusion, is how another person can become so real, so present and connected with me, and then disappear back into the numbness of our separateness. For one fleeting interval of time, my nervous system seems to extend into their being, and I can feel what they feel and sense their existence as though it were my own. And I think they will be a part of me forever. I feel as though they always had been. Then one day, the nerves are severed. The signals no longer reach me. The darkness swallows them up.
I go out in search of you and return empty handed. Where are you? Where did you go? You were here, and now you’ve dissolved into someone else whose voice no longer speaks to me, whose eyes gaze elsewhere.
I used to think this meant that the connection was never real. These days I know better. Even a true meeting of minds carries no guarantee of permanence. But this leaves me with a pressing question.
If the connections between us come and go at the drop of a hat, what does it mean to be connected? Is anything real and true? If someone feels love one day and indifference the next, what was that love, and where did it go? What does it mean when a bond dissolves or we cut the cords?
I thought I could heal my sense of disconnection by finding another equally sentient of it. However, even then, the meeting of minds does not last.
What does not last cannot be the fundamental reality. And so, I find myself grieving once again. How do I find true connection?
One thing is becoming clear. The healing needs to happen within myself. People start and end relationships to suit their needs; if I look for connectedness in the fickle tides of a relationship, I’m destined for frustration. The stability I’m looking for must come from my own commitment to love.
You are out there somewhere.
I’ve relied on my senses for proof that I’m not alone, but the senses are limited. What a torment to think my senses give me the final truth of what exists beyond me! We are pieces of the Divine, and the Divine carries us both. From that perspective, there is no need for a direct connection to persist beyond the purpose for which it was brought into being.
