nasura moi

Facebook is garbage, there I said it. I know that's not such a controversial thing to say these days after all the revelations that have come out in recent years. From sowing political discord at home and abroad to manipulating our emotions through Orwellian science experiments; one can't be blamed for trying to avoid “FB” and it's fellow social media ilk as much as possible. I still have mine for some ungodly reason, and I really should delete the thing but you know how peer pressure goes. Anyways, it had been a long while since I checked in so I opened up the app tonight to check my notifications and was immediately paralyzed with dread.

What did I see that would illicit such an extreme reaction? A simple friend request from the last person on Earth I would expect...

It was none other than the partner of the person I've been longing over for five years. I will likely delve deeper into this complicated relationship in future posts, but I'll give the tl;dr version for brevity's sake. When I started my current job years ago it was pretty tough to do, so I was quickly assigned an assistant to well... assist. They were nothing special to me at the time, in fact they were kind of bland and unassuming. But the more time we spent together, and the more they complained about their troubled marriage with a long distance partner, the more I fell head over heels for them. At first I didn't even notice it was happening until it was too late. I had fallen into a trap and became committed to an outcome which I assured myself was guaranteed.

Fast forward to an unforgettable night out where I confessed all of my pent up feelings for them and was soundly (but nicely) rejected, months of therapy, years of confusion and anticipation on whether they would or wouldn't get divorced from their spouse, and then the eventual facing of reality and pulling away for my own mental health. It's been a wild ride to say the least, and probably the most formative experience of my entire life with just as much growth as suffering. Today I still work with my lovely assistant, and now their partner has returned from abroad and they live together again. To say I'm happy about it would be a total lie, but I tolerate the situation and it gets easier by the day. There is nothing I can do about it and it was never my place to get involved anyways.

So to see a friend request from the person who in my mind has denied me the love of my life just through the mere act of existing, all while being completely oblivious while doing it; this definitely made me take a pause. It's been almost four months since they've been back and I have yet to meet them face to face, and I don't want to. The emotional cocktail that looking this person in the eye would bring up in me is something I don't want to go through, no matter how much better I may feel afterwards. I still feel guilty and selfish for attempting to sabotage their relationship behind the scenes for my own happiness, let alone the jealous feelings I still harbor inside. So you can imagine how I felt faced with this choice.

But I took a minute and thought to myself, “What would my highest self do in this situation?” The answer I got back was not surprising. My highest self would love everyone unconditionally. My highest self would not turn down an invitation for friendship over pettiness. My highest self would not believe that love is a scare resource that must be fought over with another innocent soul who just wants the exact same thing. Finally, my highest self would never see anyone else as an enemy, but instead an equal in our shared existence. Just another beautiful point of view in this vast and infinite universe of one.

So after all that philosophizing and despite my reservations over our history of loving the same person, I accepted their request. While my human side is still flawed, confused, and full of contradictions, I will always aspire to choose love and not fall prey to fear or hatred. Today may have just been one small positive step on my journey, but it's the thousand tiny steps along the way that ultimately decide our destination.