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Boyd

Allyson Taylor BoydDr. C. Bundrick Engl 250/ Desoto10/12/09

“Ending Initiation”

C. J. Jung belied that a relationship’s ending is a type of initiation. Paradoxically,initiation means beginning, and yet the most powerful types of initiation are usuallyaccompanied by some form of death. So the next time we suffer heartbreak from a lostrelationship, we should rejoice in the coming initiation.The ending of a relationship can often times be as mysterious as the beginning.Blaise Pascal said that the heart has reasons that reason cannot know. Sometimes Iwonder if he meant to say that fate, rather than “the heart” has reasons that reason cannotknow. Fate silently controls all relationships giving them their ups and downs, twists andturns and tears and laughter. Fate dominates from the beginning throughout the end. Andlike the old saying goes “you can’t fight fate”. But we still try. When a marriage orromance breaks up or when a friendship fades, it is our nature to look for rational causesand to blame the person that ended the relationship. Fates important role to the soul of therelationship is forgotten, and we take for ourselves the authorship and blame fordevelopments that are clearly the work of the soul.In order to honor the soul of a relationship, we must do so all the way, even,if necessary, through its ending. If fate brings soul into the beginning of a relationship, we

Boyd

might notice it slip out fatefully at the end. Blaming the other party for the ending of arelationship is an understandable way of avoiding the pain caused by the heartlessdemands of fate. But by avoiding that pain, we may condemn ourselves to years of beinghaunted by the very emotions and images we are attempting to escape.“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opensyour chest and it opens up your heart and means that someone can get inside you and messyou up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so thatnothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You givethem a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kissyou or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. Itgets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in darkness, so simple a phrase like‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into yourheart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a realgets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”During my three years of marriage to my former husband, I grew verybitter. Forgiving his infidelity practically became a daily ritual. Words can’t begin todescribe the torture and pain I ultimately endured throughout my marriage. I, likeGaiman, hated love. Now, even after divorce, the bitterness remains. Some days I findmyself staring out the window into the driveway day dreaming that any minute his black Toyota pickup will pull into the drive and he will walk through the door confessing hisfaults. I am just now beginning to understand that perhaps I too felt our marriage to be animpossible burden.

Boyd

It takes a great deal of courage to listen as fate slowly and painfully reveals thebitter truths in asking for change. I fought fate at every corner, determinate to make mymarriage last. After three years, five months and two days I surrendered. The relationshiphas exhausted its limitations as signs of old age signal death.My final decision to ask for a divorce came ironically, after a heart to heart with mygrandmother who has been married for over forty years. She said to me that everythingends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end. People drift apart as easily and naturally as theycome together. I know now my belief that once two people have come together, they shouldnever part was as unrealistic as it was naive.While endings are painful, they offer an invaluable introduction to a new level of experience. “ If we resist the pain of ending, we skirt around the opportunity for initiation.If we embrace the pain, not only do we find a beginning that is not simply a repetition of the experience we had in the former relationship, we may also find the consolation of knowing that in a mysterious way, effected by fate instead of human intention, therelationship has been fulfilled.” In life this relationship is considered a failure, but to thesoul it is a successful celebration.The ending of a relationship is a time of difficult emotion, challenging fantasy, anddangerous vulnerability. It is a crucial moment when we are faced with the opportunity toexplore a new level of openness or alternatively retreat into some unyielding state. If welook beyond our need for personal protection, we might very well find a door opening us upto promising new world.