the abyss
I have a metaphor about grief that I’ve honed over the years.
Imagine you’re walking along a path. It’s a nice hike in a rainforest somewhere. The difficulty of the path varies: sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes smooth, sometimes empty, sometimes crowded, uphill, downhill, sometimes clear, and sometimes thick with thorny foliage. There’s no particular map to it. You can turns down side trails as you like, but there is one rule— you can’t retrace your steps.
One day you turn a corner in the path, and suddenly you’ve found yourself on the edge of a massive abyss. The path disappears over the edge of the cliff. The drop is deep: you see a river flowing at the bottom. It’s some kind of canyon. You look left and right— there’s no bridge for you to cross. You feel dread. You feel daunted. Terrified. Now what?
Fortunately for you, you’re in a rainforest. And this rainforest has a high canopy. And this canopy has many strong, thick vines winding their way up and down the trunks of the trees. You spot a particularly thick one that you think you can cut loose on your side of the canyon. Since you have to get to the other side and you can’t turn around, you reluctantly cut the vine and test your weight against it. You’re not sure it will hold.
You’re not sure you want to do this.
You’re not sure that you can.
The vine is a metaphor for emotion. The abyss is a metaphor for tragedy in life. Anything that causes you to stop in your tracks and wonder if there is even “another side” to get to beyond the obstacle itself.
The vine is your only chance to move forward.
If you don’t take the vine (if you deny your feelings), you’ll stay on this side of the canyon. You’ll keep moving down the side of it, hoping for a place to cross that’s easier, but you’ll never find it. All you’ll find is the same impassible abyss and more swinging vines. And again, you’ll have the option to take one across or to keep moving down. You’ll have this option again and again until you choose to use it.
If you take your chance on the vine (if you acknowledge and allow your emotions to pass through you), congratulations, that’s step one. But your task is not over. Now you have to actually make it to the other side.
Some people take the vine and leap, but let go too early. They fall into the abyss. It’s nearly impossible to climb back out. If they’re lucky, they land into a calm, deep current of the river below and have a chance of being rescued. If not, they get dashed upon the rocks or drowned in the rapids.
Some people take the vine and leap, but they hold on too long. If you don’t let go at the exact right moment (if you don’t release your emotions), you lose the momentum it provides you with to get through the space above the abyss. You stay swinging back and forth, back and forth indefinitely until you find yourself in perfect suspension. At this point, you have two choices:
1) you can give up. Let go and fall into the canyon. And we already know those risks.
2) you can slowly, painfully, exhaustively pull yourself up the vine. It is a test of strength and the will to survive. Once at the top, who knows which side of the abyss that tree originates on. You might get lucky and cross to the far side of the abyss, to continue on the path. You might have to go back to the first side and try to find another vine. Either way— the climb is a wholly unnecessary expenditure of energy.
The best option is to take the vine, leap, and let go at the exact right moment. Swing through your anger, denial, the doubt of bargaining, the suffocating sadness, and finally, at that precious angle of acceptance, release the vine. Let go. Trust the laws of physics to carry you as far as you need to go to land safely on the other side.
My last piece was originally titled “The Shadows.” I wrote it in the middle of the wildest relationship of my life. As beautiful and true as it may have been, it was not meant to last. I think perhaps neither he nor I were ready for it; that our paths were only aligned for this brief window of our lives.
I retitled it “Mirrors” because the experience as a whole was more emblematic of the tight feedback loop of learning that being in relationship provides us with. When we have another human being mirror us so closely, we not only see them but we see ourselves. The images are overlaid. It can be incredibly hard to tell whose flaws belong to whom, whether what you love about them is actually something you love about yourself, whether what they dislike about you is a projection of one of their own flaws. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. This loop is sacred. When two people can be mirrors for each other and earnestly pursue betterment, it is a beautiful thing. And sometimes, this process leads one to realize that it’s not the right match.
This relationship ended as quickly as it had started in a way that left me absolutely shattered. Because our patterns repeat until they are addressed, I once again found myself newly single after a job loss. This time felt so much worse than the last. I have never been in such a dark place. If it hadn’t been for the people in my life who love me dearly, I don’t know what would’ve happened or how I would’ve gotten through it.
The reason my last post is no longer “The Shadows” is because I have now seen the real shadows in myself. When I approached my own abyss and found it staring as much into me as I into it (thank you Nietzsche), I knew well enough to cut the vine and feel everything that bubbled up in every fibre of my being. All the pain, the sense of loss, the anger at the situation, the betrayal… the resentment that comes with having trusted people who had not been honest with themselves and consequently had also not been honest with me.
I cut the vine, gripped it firmly, and swung out over the abyss. And I almost did not let go.
I waited until the last metaphorical moment to release my grasp before the vine started swinging back to a suspended homeostasis. I was tempted by the sweet high of sympathy— I had every right to be angry about how it ended, and it was all too easy to repaint the past through a filter of narcissism, manipulation, and malice. It would’ve been so satisfying to simply reside in victimhood, clinging to my anger and feeding that subtle cancer within myself.
I am so thankful that I noticed it just in time to let go.
Looking back from the far side of the abyss, I still see the beautiful path I walked to its initial edge. I mourn that I will not be able to walk it again, and I will miss the people I left behind me on that side.
But now I get to explore the next part of my own path. And I have faith that I will find beauty and magic along it again.
All in due time.
