Quote of the day:
“Beautiful disaster
Runnin' down the street again
I tried to keep up
You wore me out and left me ate up
Now I wish you all the luck...
Butterfly in the wind without a care
A pretty train crash to me and I can't care
I do… I don't… whatever.”
~ 311, Beautiful Disaster
Today as I was driving home, a song came on the radio that quite literally catapulted me back in time several years ago to a warm sunny night, riding shotgun with one of the most amazing human beings I've ever been blessed to have known. We were talking about life in general and the conversation somehow shifted over to my personal life and my, then, drama du jour. Yes, even though I often go to great lengths to avert drama, it relentlessly plagues me.
“Why” I asked my friend, “do I always seem to have some ridiculous drama in my life? Here I am: clever, strong, compassionate, well educated, and independent. Yet underneath all of these ostensible assets I, time and again (against my better judgment), continue to make bad choices. I am, without question, an absolute fucking idiot.”
He said nothing. We drove in silence for what seemed an eternity.
As we pulled up to the place where I had parked my car, I turned to grab my purse from the back seat. My friend stopped his vehicle and gently pulled my wrist up to his lips and kissed it. The gesture was incredibly tender and totally unexpected. I had absolutely no idea how to react. Before I could open my mouth to say something, he placed one finger over my mouth and murmured, “No.” Each time I opened my mouth to object, he simply placed his finger over my mouth and whispered, “No.” I didn’t understand and was totally confused. We sat there together in his car, him holding my arm, me wondering what in the hell was going on.
After sitting in unspoken contemplation for god knows how long, he finally turned to me and our eyes met. “You are a beautiful disaster.” Noting the puzzled look on my face, he continued. “You are NOT an idiot. No, idiocy has nothing to do with this. You are a saboteur. Yes, you sabotage your happiness time and again. I don’t know why you do it and I don’t need to. It’s almost like you won’t give yourself permission to just be happy.” He continued as I sat there frozen and teary-eyed, dumbfounded by the soulfulness of his words. “You are simply… a beautiful disaster. I love you.”
Wow. Very hard to describe after the fact, but the moment was so overwhelming that I nearly passed out. And it was within that moment I realized how much this person truly meant to me and the intensity of love I felt for him. Yet I was afraid - insanely afraid - of being hurt as I’ve been countless times before. So instead of communicating these feelings to him…I remained still. Tears were streaming down my face and my heart was ready to burst…and I merely got out of the car and walked away - out of his life and straight into my own nightmare.
I often wonder how different my life would have been had I told him that night, regardless of my circumstances, how much I truly loved him. Would my life’s unending cycle of tragedy have been destroyed by the outpouring of my deepest feelings and willingness to succumb to true love? Throughout the years I have almost convinced myself that he could have saved me from myself.
When life seems almost too much to bear and my frustrations are pinnacled, I feel utterly compelled to flog myself. My inner voices scream out, “You fucking idiot!” Yet sometimes, in rare moments of lucidity such as this one, I am reminded, through the help of a certain song and keen memory that, “No. I am simply…a beautiful disaster.”
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