Suicidal Man, Hanged Man

Golden Gate Bridge, a.k.a Suicidal Man by Byron Randall

     In a Facebook group of polyamorous people in Arizona to which I belong, someone asked for people to comment with their favorite breakup songs. I was struck by how many were raging, angry, dismissive or otherwise critical of the ex. I get the idea, but I do not share the tendency, at least not for very long. I recall (and there is some evidence on this blog) being bitter, angry and judgmental toward A back in the early part of our breakup, but I need to move myself through that energy fairly quickly, in service to my recovery. I can't remain in resentment. It is as Bill W says the dubious luxury of normal people. It is corrosive and potentially fatal for me. 

     How to get out? Pray, meditate. "May all beings be free, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful and at ease, may all beings be full of loving kindness," even those beings who are not giving me what I want. This honestly does work, in case any of you are skeptical. I find that I don't even have to be sincere. If I just keep offering it, everything eventually softens. 

     The other way out is to forget about the other person entirely and just look at my role. My experience. My insecurity, my jealousy, my demanding nature, my clinging, my expectations, my own selfishness. To do this in a spirit of friendliness and good will toward myself is challenging, but the effects are healing. Because, after all, what can I do about someone else? And how accurate are all my stories about them anyway? 

     The above painting by artist Byron Randall is an homage to a friend of his who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. His suicide note said "There is not enough love in the world." Believe me, I resonate. 

     Where is love missing? Everywhere, clearly. But, and this is by no means offered as superficial anodyne, what if I were able to bring the love that's missing from within myself, to every situation? Or to enough situations that it would feel that, at least, there is enough love in the world to keep me?

     I think this is a highly worthy goal. It's amusing, observing the behavior of the people in the Facebook polyamory group. It seems like the entire range of motivations and intentions lie behind the polyamory of various members of the group. May of the men just seem desperate and thirsty. Many members seem able to navigate polyamorous arrangements entirely because they do not feel very deeply at all and their connections are loose and easy. Some seem to both deeply connect and be capable of multiple connections on multiple layers. 

     I doubt I am poly, in all situations. Many in the "poly community" believe that polyamory is an orientation one is born with. I don't experience it that way. It is situational for me. I have been in partnerships where there was little to no sexual or emotional jealousy in spite of very deep affection, and within those contexts, polyamory feels natural and sustainable to me. Recently, I had the opportunity to experience severe possessiveness, jealousy and insecurity, and of course within a context like that, polyamory is a pipe dream and unhealthy. I think it may well be that there are people who are capable of being situationally poly and equally situationally mono. I would have tried an open poly arrangement with the loml, but that was not practical I guess. And then I would have had to find some way to more effectively deal with my truly toxic jealousy. Toxic to me, I mean. Extreme discomfort and hurt. So odd for me, since the last time I felt such jealousy was in 1983. 

     Another aspect of involvement in that weird Facebook group is that I have the experience of being a weirdo within a group of weirdos for whom I am extra weird. Haha. This is the same experience I often have in AA. The rooms are populated by the identified patients of society, and are like the Island of Misfit Toys, and even so, I seem to be extra in the eyes of many. I neither am hurt by this nor do I wear it like a badge. It is my spectrally weirdling truth, and it is what it is. 

     Lou Reed's Busload of Faith has been running through my mind the past few weeks, and it summarizes a sort of bottom line for me, which is, as much as we rely on our family, friends, lovers, identity, beliefs, ego structure, the impermanence will always rear up, and in those times, we need a busload of faith to get by, because there isn't anything else. 

 

     Carl Jung's explanation of what is going on when we spend a season in hell feels connected to this:

 "What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one's own will and one's own wit and do nothing but wait and trust to the impersonal power of growth and development." 
     But the key within this type of hell is also to survive in the waiting. Sometimes our experience of an impossible situation feels also like it will be a fatal situation. As if we just won't make it. Or we just don't want to. These are probably the most important kind of impossible situation. How droll.