2004-09-11
Love.

Love.

Love and Fate.

I am living a lesson of love and fate.

Selfless love is an interesting concept. Ive felt love and sacrifice before in relationship to a partner. Ive felt love and sacrifice before in relationship to my family. I try and live from a place of love and give love to as many people as I can, amidst my many flaws. But this month, this month is different. I am living something fierce in meaning and fate and it all comes down to selfless love for an old friend who arrived on my doorstep with a problem.

Days before I was given a free ticket to Burning Man, and the gift of time to explore the playa, (one that I had been battling to receive all summer), a young woman from many years past, a woman I consider a sister, arrived at my doorstep in New York City to see me, just for a few days, while she considers moving to NYC to dance. I live in a small studio and the idea of sharing it with anyone is challenging, but of course, out of love, there wasnt even a second thought.

The turn of fate happened when we found out two days later that she was pregnant with a man's baby who she had only known for a few weeks.

Not to mention she is broke, and was just laid off her job, has no savings and comes from a relatively low income family.

In a way, I felt the feeling that an everest climber I know had when he was just 300 feet short of the summit and someone on his team fell 600 feet into a crevase. He turned around to save him, of course, but not everyone would make that same decision.

So here I am. Two weeks or so later... I really have no idea how long it has been -- a whirlwind.

I was able to hire her as my asst for a few days so she could have some money, I have been on the phone with doctors, clinics, medicaid, plannned parenthood, counselors, you name it -- as she cant get on the phone without crying or getting angry at the staff who are simply trying to help. I have spent several days sitting in a waiting room while she tries to make decisions, and ultimately terminate the preganancy and I can only imagine that this is a test of fate. This woman needs me right now and yet I dont know what else I can give. I have given her hugs, I have given her love, I have given her money, I have sacrificed my most sacred week of the year on the playa, I have fed her, let her sleep in my bed for weeks, brushed her hair, wiped her tears, talked to her mom -- and yet here I am. Empty. Drained. Certain that there is some fate that has brought me here. Certain that she has few who could help, and I am most certainly the most grounded. Certain that when I could have been high on life riding across the universe of the playa and feeling every breath of life to carry me through the following year -- that there must be a reason for my fate.

She needs me. I consider her a sister and I am here for her. But my eyes are filled with tears, my body drained, my heart lonely, and I wish more than anything else in the world that I was in love with someone that could hold me right now and tell me that Im doing the right thing. That Im the most special thing in the world and that there is a bigger reason for this all. That love is love and sometimes fate doesnt allow things to happen the way they should but to have faith, to stay in that place of love, to believe in myself, to find the beauty in my ability to make such a sacrifice.

I miss being in love. I miss having someone to love and to hold and to hold me and love me like no one else in the entire world could. Ive had that kind of love before and on a day like today, I wonder if Ill ever find it again. Is it possible that you outgrow your opportunnity to be loved? Is it possible that your role on the planet is to give love but not receive? I hope not. I hope that isnt the case. Today, it feels like maybe it is. It is also Sept 11, and I honor and pray for all those who lost ones they love at the World Trade Center.

previous | next
all past entries

email