Storytelling and re-story-re-telling

How do we best go about making meaning out of a profound experience that yet never was able to unfold fully? What if much of what was one of the most important experiences of our lives was, at the same time, locked in potential in many ways, never able to be actualized? 

  

Sometimes I guess the story has to change for people to find a way to integrate what happened into their ongoing life. I respect that fact. Sometimes the revisionism can be jarring- I once made a set of polyamorous agreements with a partner, and while we were together she exercised her poly rights a couple times (including with the guy who ended up becoming her new monogamous partner), but when she ended our partnership, she was furious that she had agreed to be poly. "I was in love with you. I would have agreed to anything." I'm not sure, but I don't think that's how this stuff works- or- well, I guess it is exactly how it works, but my sense of justice or whatever says that it "ought not" work that way. 

I was feeling bottomless sadness last night but I asked myself, well, would you have not had any of that happen then? Grief over something being over is natural, but what if you try to also be grateful for it happening? That helped. No, I would not change a thing, not one minute. Well, except. "I would go back" to one of the moments of clarity that was earlier along the timeline, and acted on that earlier. I'm feeling the pangs of my selfishness and self-centeredness in pursuing something that was clearly causing suffering in someone else. This is just a plain fact: I knew there was suffering as a result of the situation, but I pursued the situation anyway. Darkness started to creep into the deal pretty early on, and yet I hung on for months, and I'm not feeling great about that at the moment. I know exactly what to do about it: inventory, 5th step, 8th step, 9th step. Of course- revisionism is a fun game. It all happened exactly as it happened. Live and learn, they say. "I would have done this" is maybe the least meaningful thing we can utter, unless what we mean is "next time, I will practice doing this instead of what I did."  

I've been feeling anger and resentment, sadness, stuckness and bewilderment. But it does ameliorate a lot of that when I am able to remember that at least all of it happened, and was a tremendous gift while it was possible, and was the kind of rare experience and indelible adventure that one dreams about, yet was real. The price one pays for the adventure is still less than the gift itself, no matter how painful. 

One thing I don't want to do is throw the experience under the bus. I notice this tendency in myself to deny the reality of my experience when things don't end up going my way. I have a lot of negative self talk around it, sometimes. You're an idiot, it was never real, it was a delusion, you're sick, you're a gullible fucking dumbass, you lack a sense of reality, your sentimentality is a dark joke. Very harsh- and it's just a defense mechanism. If the experience wasn't real, then the loss isn't real either. Instead, I can just beat the shit out of myself and avoid sadness. Of course, this is not effective. 

I've also been wrestling a lot with trying to understand what was real for other people and what was not. This is futile, but I still go there. Reciprocity is such a weird thing. Why does it exist or seem to exist at all, really? Yet it seems to be real. Two people seem to acknowledge to each other that they are having "the same experience, the same feelings." Often, however, when things end or change, one or the other or both people sometimes go back and re-tell. No, it was not true, I was not having the same experience or the same feelings. I was deluded. "I was in love, so I would have agreed to anything." I was only pretending. I had fooled myself. It seemed true then but now I know it was a lie. 

This awful thing that is daggering me in the chest on the regular can't have been real, so I'll just re-tell the story, gut the experience, fucking burn it down, throw myself and/or the other person under the bus, and that is the way I'll finally be able to move on. 

Yeah- no. I'm convinced that is one of the key moments that leads to repetition. Our will and conscious minds having rejected what was, our unconscious energies subtly go about trying to do it again, to prove that it was in fact real or to "get it right this time." I think one of the ways out of the half-nelson of loss is to allow the story to be real, to sit with it, and to not do anything about it at all, except to respond in whatever ways one responds. But one way or the other, I find I have to have a story to tell. 

I believe we (or at least some of us) have a core need to make meaning out of the events in our lives. By "core," I mean it is actually a matter of life or death. It's a survival need for some of us. Like air, water, food, shelter. It's not high up on the hierarchy of needs, it's way down deep at the base, at the fundamental level. I have known people who seem to not need to make meaning or tell a story. I've often been astonished by that—sometimes have envied it. How weird it would be for me if my experiences were only existential moments, not woven into any kind of narrative. I guess there would be great freedom in that. But, as appealing as it is sometimes, from a standpoint of the relief of suffering, it's also repulsive to me. Ultimately, I will take what happened, and I'll find a way to keep it with me, and I'll be grateful it happened exactly as it did. The fundamental fact is that I am incredibly grateful that it happened. Whatever ways others hurt me or made mistakes, may I forgive and let go. Whatever mistakes I made, may I learn from them, forgive myself, and be more capable of healthy and loving relationships in the future as a result.  

Story integrates the disintegrated, which is high magic and powerful alchemy. But, being as powerful as it is, this also means I have to treat the process with respect, a degree of awe, acceptance and presence. It doesn't help me to force a story in an attempt to redeem myself or others, or in an effort to reduce suffering.