Love the one you're with

That's a tough statement for me to make. I sit here alone, except for me. Love me? Well, yes. I know how to use that statement now. Stephen Stills had something else in mind, but if you've been through what I've been through (and many of you have), "Love the one you're with" will have special meanings.

I was alone, especially in a crowd. I was at a loss for what to do, what to do with conflicts, with failures, even with successes. I couldn't say "no", I had to take care of you to take care of me. I felt anger when you said no. Then conflict was turmoil, and turmoil was failure. I was afraid you would point out my worth, so I took every opportunity to rescue, to save, to fix, to make myself indispensable. I doubted me. I failed, over and over, and successes were merely favors from others or dumb luck. So I failed, I damaged, I resented. I ignored. I was at your mercy and I was neglected. I was helpless. I was forgettable, invisible. Worst, perhaps, I was manageable.

Right now inside I feel a beating heart. Breath comes in, these lungs fill with ease, slight stretch of muscles, diaphragm pushes down. So familiar, so self-sufficient. Lacking in story, breathe in, breathe out. And I know this, I am in it, and I don't have to make it succeed or hold it up from failure. I do not have contact with it, the breathing is me. Calm. Steady. Not greedy, not lacking. I was alone, now have I comfort.

I come to you, all of you who know and have lived to share your experience. You may not understand me or even like me. You do not tell me what to do, you tell me what you know and where you've been and where you're heading, and by whose grace you go. Now I see my next step, with gratitude.

I saw that your strength came from faith, whether you fell or not. I found confidence inside me as I said "yes" and "no" and I was not destroyed. The truth happened instead of my fear, and in that space I found strength.

There, I held onto anger like holding a burning coal, fueled by fear of conflict, as if my very being depended on that grip. Here I have always been unshakable, unmovable, and always ever other than that. Just this. Here, becoming is a vast place of peace.

The burden I saw on your back has vanished. My worth is my own. And although I cannot see into tomorrow I believe it will be there. This moment is blessed with hope.

I have felt these truths, I know what they feel like. Their shapes and colors, sandpaper and silk. They find me indispensable. My doubt has turned to devotion.

I have bruised myself, I have twisted and broken my last bit of chance. I did not know, I could not see, I was afraid and little and my patience so thin. No more yelling at me, no more of my snide swipes. I am forgiven.

I was strong and didn't feel it. I was smart and didn't see it. I was caring and tenderly dressed wounds in the dark. I lived another day, I made amends and was mended. I am a survivor in this world.

The mess is clearing, and it is not a mess at all. It is my life as I've known it, this place where all of my life has happened. It is what I've been and what I am and what I will be, and it is always ever other than that. I remember it. I see it. It is beyond me as well as mine. Held, like my mother's touch. Dust was in my eyes.

Love the one you're with.

"Any feelings of love or hate for anything, those will be your aides and partners in developing paramita, or transcendant virtue. The Buddha's Dhamma is not in going forward, nor in going back, nor in standing still. This, venerable Sumedho, is your place of nonabiding." --Ajahn Chah

So, a woman brought a very limp duck to a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.

After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away."

The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," replied the vet.

"How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room.

He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room.

A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck."

The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried, "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!"

The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $150.