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thoreau“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”
- H.D.T.
On my trip this weekend - I had this sentence rolling around in my head - - - "if we will be quiet and ready enough - we shall find compensation in every disappointment." and it rang in my head as I walked Miss Kate along a creek near Sebastapol - the live oaks looming in the leftover morning fog. It stuck - and I knew I'd read it somewhere. I came home to find it - and there it was attributed to HDT.
Having one's heart broken is an interesting journey. On one hand - you experience the expected hurt and pain of it all. You try to blame someone else for your hurt. Sometimes you even push them from your life. But all the time you are hurting someone else is telling you that "it just takes time" and "time heals all wounds." Thats a great and true statement but it is not the answer. The answer - at least for me personally? wasn't simply time. It was coming to the point of being quiet and ready enough. From the very beginning - I told friends I talked to about things that it wasn't the end of the relationship that hurt - it was the crushing (and it seemed never-ending) disappointment. It was the disappointment that had me coming home crushed emotionally. and - in the last few weeks - the first breaths of a new year - I had this sentence rolling around in my head. "if we will be quiet and ready enough - we shall find compensation in every disappointment." Okay - so perhaps it is Henry's way of saying "Time heals all wounds" - and "It just takes time." - but it goes a step farther in my estimation. it says that in every crushing disappointment - and every minor one - life presents us with a lesson - that if we're quiet enough - and ready to hear it - - with that lesson learned and sometimes, even, learned at the expense of so many things from friendships, to emotional stability, to our self-confidence.
I know that I damaged friendships, damaged my reputation with some, was rewarded with friendships that grew richer and stronger, a new sense of myself - and a new appreciation for quiet. I know that some (of you) simply backed away - knowing that it was a lesson nobody could help me realize. And no - not every lesson is so intense. But - having truly experienced heartbreak this past year - and I can tell you that it is unequivocally the most difficult thing I've ever had to work through personally. and I'm not on the compensating path yet - I don't think - but I'm approaching a time in my life where I'll be quiet enough to forgive someone who I blamed for all my hurt.
I simply will not hurt anymore. but in the last year - I've learned so much - and am so very sure - that before lays the red clay path where my footprints FORWARD will be compensation enough. and I know that forgiveness - is that first step.
Last spring - I wrote a LJ entry entitled "thoreau was wrong".I knew better. In that entry I talked about how thoreau said "the only remedy to love is to love more." When I read that quote in my desk book last year? I didn't understand the love that Thoreau was referring to. It had nothing to do with someone who'd broken my heart - and everything to do with me. I had to learn to love myself enough to let go of the dreams I'd loved enough to uproot myself and come to California. I had to learn to love myself enough not to let the disappointment that crushed me when they didn't materialize - take over my life.
Thoreau says that there is no remedy for love - but to love more. and now I really understand a great deal more about what he meant.
- H.D.T.
Coastal Live Oak 2007, Sebastapol, CA
Photo Credit: Lloyd Chambers
On my trip this weekend - I had this sentence rolling around in my head - - - "if we will be quiet and ready enough - we shall find compensation in every disappointment." and it rang in my head as I walked Miss Kate along a creek near Sebastapol - the live oaks looming in the leftover morning fog. It stuck - and I knew I'd read it somewhere. I came home to find it - and there it was attributed to HDT.
Having one's heart broken is an interesting journey. On one hand - you experience the expected hurt and pain of it all. You try to blame someone else for your hurt. Sometimes you even push them from your life. But all the time you are hurting someone else is telling you that "it just takes time" and "time heals all wounds." Thats a great and true statement but it is not the answer. The answer - at least for me personally? wasn't simply time. It was coming to the point of being quiet and ready enough. From the very beginning - I told friends I talked to about things that it wasn't the end of the relationship that hurt - it was the crushing (and it seemed never-ending) disappointment. It was the disappointment that had me coming home crushed emotionally. and - in the last few weeks - the first breaths of a new year - I had this sentence rolling around in my head. "if we will be quiet and ready enough - we shall find compensation in every disappointment." Okay - so perhaps it is Henry's way of saying "Time heals all wounds" - and "It just takes time." - but it goes a step farther in my estimation. it says that in every crushing disappointment - and every minor one - life presents us with a lesson - that if we're quiet enough - and ready to hear it - - with that lesson learned and sometimes, even, learned at the expense of so many things from friendships, to emotional stability, to our self-confidence.
I know that I damaged friendships, damaged my reputation with some, was rewarded with friendships that grew richer and stronger, a new sense of myself - and a new appreciation for quiet. I know that some (of you) simply backed away - knowing that it was a lesson nobody could help me realize. And no - not every lesson is so intense. But - having truly experienced heartbreak this past year - and I can tell you that it is unequivocally the most difficult thing I've ever had to work through personally. and I'm not on the compensating path yet - I don't think - but I'm approaching a time in my life where I'll be quiet enough to forgive someone who I blamed for all my hurt.
I simply will not hurt anymore. but in the last year - I've learned so much - and am so very sure - that before lays the red clay path where my footprints FORWARD will be compensation enough. and I know that forgiveness - is that first step.
Last spring - I wrote a LJ entry entitled "thoreau was wrong".I knew better. In that entry I talked about how thoreau said "the only remedy to love is to love more." When I read that quote in my desk book last year? I didn't understand the love that Thoreau was referring to. It had nothing to do with someone who'd broken my heart - and everything to do with me. I had to learn to love myself enough to let go of the dreams I'd loved enough to uproot myself and come to California. I had to learn to love myself enough not to let the disappointment that crushed me when they didn't materialize - take over my life.
Thoreau says that there is no remedy for love - but to love more. and now I really understand a great deal more about what he meant.
