Saturday, July 21, 2007

Pawns In Fate's Game.

Question was recently telling me some more of her legendary hippy stuff about Buddha and how no matter where you are in your life, you've always been on your way to that place, which should make you feel good, or home, or like you belong. I've been thinking about it some lately, and at first it was really comforting. Lately, though, it's turned into this strange way of feeling like I'm living at the center of the universe.

If every moment in my life was leading me to this moment, then all the people I've known, loved, and lost were just pawns in some kind of game of fate...steps I had to surmount. Possums I had to squish on my fate road. While there certainly are some folks who I'd like to squish like possums, I don't really like the way that makes me feel.

But then I realized that those people and places are on their own journeys, too, and I'm a pawn in their fate games just as they're pawns in mine. It doesn't have to mean that I'm a horrible selfish bitch! I was a step along the way for them, and hopefully, they learned from the pain I caused them just as I've learned from the pain that they caused me.

Mainly, this vague "they" I'm referencing is the Ex, or the various Exes my husband and I have had to surpass to get to our present life together. Perhaps I'm dealing with a little guilt about hurting the Ex, or perhaps I'm trying to understand the point he was making on our anniversary when he kept insisting that he didn't understand why his Ex was so angry he'd slept with EVERYONE SHE KNEW and made her look like a fool. I told him, "Well, it's because you broke her heart. That's not nice, and I'd be mad at you, too. I'm kind of mad at you for her, and I don't even like her." And he said, "But if that's I had to do at that time in my life, and it's gotten us both out of an unhealthy relationship and into better ones, then wasn't it the right thing at the time?"

At first, I thought he was deflecting guilt in that special addicty way. Our anniversary made him think about how we got here, and the steps he had to take to get to me and our life together, even the steps that were hard and scary and that sometimes make him feel guilty. It pissed me off at the time, but I think I get it, now. He was talking about the pawn-thing...

It's always interesting to me how everyone seems to be on the same page at the same time, even when we don't know we're reading the same book.

2 comments:

Wayward Son said...

This is a stellar platitude if I do say so myself. There would be no game of chess if not for the pawns!

I tend to think of it a little differently. Each day is in preparation for the next. That way, I do not rationalize past behaviors so I can repeat them in the future; I rationalize them so I do not.

That's a nice little epiphany you got going, though.

WS

longvowels said...

I agree with Question on this. I try to explain this idea to my mom who is alway telling me about what i should have done. I always tell her that I couldn't have done that because that obviously not what I needed to be doing at the time.

My journey has always been bringing me here and it will continue this journey to... somewhere. Maybe this road leads to Poland, maybe not, but either way that's ok.
Just as us meeting when we did, you being with G, me totally identifying with those feelings and everything. sigh...