It Is Better to Have Loved and Lost...

It Is Better to Have Loved and Lost…

I look back at my life with a proud sense of human triumph. I have had many attempts at love. Some lasted many years and were wonderful most of the time. Some have lasted many years and were terrible most of the time. Some lasted a short time, but were great. As a couple, we just weren’t in the right place to commit to each other.

Other times I’ve taken chances at love, and it simply didn’t work out. Has that stymied my desire to find love now? Maybe a little. I find myself a little depressed and sullen at times when I look back at my relationship history. It’s like opening a journal of plays that worked and plays that didn’t. I can either learn from the mistakes, or grieve over the loss. I take turns in the emotions.

But I still feel that as the heart leads, it is always searching for love—romantic or God or platonic love. The heart is a rudder that will always take us to a divine, loving destiny. We may not always end up in the perfect, life-long partnership, but we will certainly learn a ton of lessons in the searching. Maybe along the way we will have some incredible passion, fun, joy, camaraderie, and intimacy. That is certainly all of our hopes.

Fifty-two years is past the halfway mark. I’m now on the home field, heading toward the end-zone. Just how much stamina do I have left to take the tackles from the blind-sided dates, the avoidant blockers, and the anxious linebackers ready to commit off-sides before the play is called?

(God, Dad would be proud of me if I he could hear this gay man making a football metaphor after years of trying to teach me the ins and outs of the game, with me only smiling glibly and pretending to care. I once announced in front of his friends and relatives, “Dad, was that a homerun?” when a touchdown had bee  just completed? I was an ass to him, as I tried to pay him back for being a completely insensitive father with no empathy for his “song and dance” gay son.)

Fifty two. That makes for about 35 years of real dating. Why haven’t I gotten this thing right? I’ve almost been married twice to women. God bless both of them. Diana and Marina if you are reading this, leave a comment and let the readers know that I was a good, loving and compassionate boyfriend.

To any of the men who may be reading this who have dated me, pretend that you never read it and don’t comment. I know I have been a hardnosed partner when it came to being right. I have asked for you to be perfect and authentic and upstanding. These were mostly things that none of you could be at certain times of the relationship. I know that you are sorry for that. I wish I would have been more forgiving—at least enough to have continued to love and not let go. I just felt like some things—like trust—were impossible to replenish. And maybe they could have been worked on.

I once was told by a therapist that some men go through a change of life that usually lasts about 6 to 8 months, then these same men usually go back to their normal selves. Of all the loves in my life, the one love that I wished I would have known that information for, this time line actually turned out to be true. But by that time, I had already given up.

We say, “What does love have to do with it?” Sometimes, absolutely nothing.

Reason is more likely to keep your head on straight and keep you striving for the goal when you are clearly in the end zone. But some times you just need the right coaches on the sidelines urging you to do the right thing. For me, I had friends telling me all the wrong things. We all were against my –ex at the same time for his bad choices. I couldn’t see that there was an ending to his many problems. I couldn’t see his problem as a sickness or a deficiency that would pass. I couldn’t see that my love could cover it all. For that, it is probably my only life’s regret.

I hope not to make that mistake again as I journey on, holding my head above the water, weathering out the storms of my upcoming relationship life.

What I hope for you, my friends, is what I shared with a new prospective client tonight. You are not alone, if you don’t want to be alone in your struggle to find your authentic self, I can be there with you. All you have to do is reach out!

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Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.

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