Love hurts (or does it?)
A reader asked me a heavyweight question about loving and letting go. I got into the ring and gave it my best shot.
Dear Jacob,
I didn’t know what I was going to write this morning. Then I read your comment on one of my last posts and the way was suddenly clear (that said, I’ve been boxing it out with this piece for several months now, so maybe not as clear as I originally thought).
In that post, I wrote about my dog, Rose, and the sensitive quick inside her claws, and how you’re not supposed to cut the quick—the nerve endings and the blood vessels, the stuff that feels. I wrote about how I’ve accidentally cut her quick before, and how we all have our quicks cut in one way or another. Life wounds us. I wondered if perhaps it’s not a dark, cosmic accident that we are woundable, each of us a walking, breathing, Substacking quick incarnate. Our sensitivities serve something more than just the evolutionary function of keeping us alive, I proposed. The accidents and transgressions which cause us pain create opportunities to find out who we are and what we’re capable of.
It all sounds good. Makes sense. Unless your quick’s cut and you’re actually in pain. Re-reading this now, I’m like, sure, come back to me when shit starts to suck, then try telling me it’s a growth opportunity.
You cut to the quick with me in your comment.
I haven’t been keeping up with your posts because I feel like sometimes you step on my damaged and exposed quick. (Maybe I’m stepping on it myself). Your words sometimes leave me to feel sensitive and self questioning. And yet, you so often write about love and healing. So maybe I’m selectively listening…because that’s much more difficult. More difficult to run back in the room, ready to love again…How do you choose to let go of the things that make love and acceptance painful?
Damn. Huh. Well, let me think about that for a sec. What do I know about letting go?