Enter, The Mentor
By: A Person That Lives A Life
Tags: Relationships, Pain, Love, Depression, Heartbreak

Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Ed: No one knows the full story. Not even me.

The Monk: Pray tell.

Ed: I’m ready to talk about Mercedes.

The Monk: Why don’t you describe your dynamic with her?

Tears well in Ed’s eyes. He laughs slightly as the tears pour out. A wane frown replaces his affection.

Ed: Only one word fills my head — perfect.

The Monk nods.

The Monk: What made it perfect?

Ed puts his hand over his heart, unable to control its plagued beats.

Ed: Mercedes was kind. I could tell her everything. We talked all day. Everyday. She had me thinking in different ways. She was funny and smart. Full of integrity. Mercedes never sexualized me, though she could have. She would have had the power to take things that way — she had that sort of control over me — but didn’t. We exchanged messages and thoughts, books and poetry, films and ideas. We took each other’s recommendations seriously. I’d never experienced that before. And every time I was weak, she was there. Mercedes was there for me when my marriage fell. Patient and listening. So attentive. She got me through the first half of the divorce. I couldn’t have made it through without her. Being around Mercedes made me believe in soulmates.

The Monk’s forehead wrinkles.

The Monk: You spoke every day. You were authentically yourself. You exchanged many words. This sounds like intimacy. This sounds like a relationship.

Ed: Yes, it…confuses me. I thought things were building a certain way. I saw us one way and Mercedes must have seen us another. I don’t understand why she would give me so much time if I wasn’t…you see, she sent me a gift. A meaningful gift at that. It was on my birthday. A book came to me that I had always wanted to read. I ate it up as soon as I got it. I look at it often. I keep it right above my head, on the shelf of my headboard. I stroke its spine when I miss her…

Snot builds within Ed’s nose and runs down to his lips. They mix with the tears coating his face. Ed tries to wipe them away with his shirtsleeve, but his liquids keep running. With every beat of his sacred heart, more of his essence leaves him.

The Monk: She never defined things.

Ed: I’m not sure. I told Mercedes I had feelings early on. She didn’t seem to think much of them. She told me they would go away. That was back when Mercedes was an undefined possibility. I hadn’t known for sure what her constant care and communication meant. When she said what I felt would go away, I sealed my adoration up tightly. I thought I’d shelved it, but I always hoped she would want those feelings from me eventually. Maybe it was the state of the divorce that made Mercedes hesitant with me. It was hard to say. Still, she seemed to move forward month by month with ease. She called this man cute and that man interesting. Mercedes revealed a number of crushes as time went on. A whole range of people who weren’t me. I died inside everyday she looked away from me and towards another partner. In those months she explored, I knew more and more each day how purely I loved her. How do you not love a person who is so innately there for you?

The Monk: Mercedes never told you why you weren’t the right fit for her?

Ed strains to keep his face more up than downcast. His smile bobs up and down like a buoy, as if to say, Yes, I’m in pain, but please don’t feel this wretchedness too.

Ed: No. Mercedes said she would never see me romantically. It could be a number of things. I wonder if I would torture myself about it if I did know the exact reason. Mercedes had repeatedly mentioned she didn’t like emotionally expressive people. She likes people who internalize what they feel. People who have more of an even keel. And that certainly isn’t me. I have to get emotion out or it kills me. Which is…why I’m here. I’m failing with that even now.

Ed sets his jaw, wishing he could be different. Even just for her.

The Monk: Mercedes being attracted to more internalized emotion might reflect her insecurity around expressing her own emotion. Maybe she doesn’t want to be constantly confronted by her inability to do what you so naturally do.

Ed’s eyes widen, having never considered the why behind her unintendedly cutting assertion.

The Monk: You’re not made wrong. You’re made in the exact way you’re supposed to be.

Ed: It’s felt that I was made wrong for a long time. I keep thinking that if I could just not express, if I could just not feel things so deeply, if I could just shut off one of the predominant things that drives me, then she could see me like I see her.

The Monk bites his inner cheek.

The Monk: What did it feel like when Mercedes gave you her final answer?

Ed: I knew what Mercedes would say before she said it. I felt it in my bones. ‘It hurt me’ would be putting it lightly. I showed Mercedes everything I was and everything I had. And still, that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. It’s difficult when this person you hold in high esteem looks you over and comes to an irrevocable judgment against your personhood. Mercedes was confirmation for me that I wasn’t enough.

The Monk leans forward and puts his hand on Ed’s knee.

The Monk: I was worried you felt that way. You not being enough is not the truth. That idea is what we need to pull apart.

Ed: But how can it not be? When you find someone who you can be your authentic self with for the first time in your life, when you find someone you are safe with, when you find someone who engages with you daily, when you find someone who makes you feel like what you say is important, when you find someone who you think sees you and they still say no…that is the ultimate rejection. You just feel worthless. As though even the best sort of person has deemed you unfit to love.

Ed’s tears build and fall, again and again. He can’t say her name without his truth overflowing, his brokenness wearing through his skin like a faulty cloak.

The Monk’s voice turns soft, almost a whisper.

The Monk: Did you ever tell anyone about her?

Ed bends forward in his chair, wishing his heart would fall out of his chest and tumble across the floor. It would be easier if his emotion would leave him like she promised it would.

Ed: No. It was this big, hard secret I kept to myself. I loved her and no one knows how it killed me.

The Monk: Thank you, for trusting me enough to tell me all of this.

Ed: I had to. It’s been six months and I’m still having a hard time. I’m still weeping. No contact and I’m at a loss of how to fix this. I felt her energy slip away month by month, but I love her and I don’t know how not to.

The Monk: Love Mercedes all you want. It’s not about not loving her. You can’t forget her. It’s more about what compartment that love needs to take up.

Ed: I just want peace. I’m having a hard time getting there. Mercedes said it would just go away. It hasn’t.

The Monk: You need to release this love so that the universe can find someone to return that love to you. What do we know, my son? We know that Mercedes is not the right person for you. First, because you are an emotionally expressive person and you deserve someone who values all of the color you provide through that, as I do. And second, because she doesn’t want to be and you deserve someone who chooses you back. Believe it or not, Mercedes did not check all the boxes.

Ed: That’s…fair.

The Monk: It’s messy, but we will clear the mess together. You don’t have to do this alone.

Ed breathes a long sigh and leans his head back in his chair. Tears stream down both sides of his face, pooling at his earlobes. He feels gone. Done. Toast.

The Monk: Edmond, she broke your heart.