From a very early age, I got used to seeing people coming into my life for two reasons, and these reasons resonated with me deeply because I am generally very charmed by human beings. Every time, I expect the world from the interaction, and when the world doesn’t turn at least 360 degrees, I get disappointed quickly. People are so multilayered, multifaceted, multidimensional, but many choose to be plain. Too plain for their own potential. Plain to themselves. Plain to others. Plain in their self-expression. Plain in their interactions. Plain in their purposes. I have nothing against having fun, but I do have something against having fun only, for the sake of fun, and having no other aspirations.
Those reasons became clear after I got a few disappointments. Then I understood that people come into our lives either for our help or to teach us something. That’s what I thought when I was young. “What can this person teach me, or how could I help them?” was my mantra in my 20s. Then my 30s came. Then my 40s. I forgot. Have I stopped being wise? Or just realized that it’s a bit more complicated than that? How easy would life be if we took all human appearances in our lives as lessons or requests for help. How simple it would be.
Today, remembering my early years’ mantra, I realized what I was missing. It’s not false to think that people come into our lives for a reason — to give us lessons or to receive our help. But what about them? Why are we coming into their lives? Perhaps we are also teachers and help seekers. This adds another dimension. When we are young, we rarely think of ourselves as needing someone’s support. But as we grow older, it is no longer such a ridiculous thought. Being teachers and students to each other is so obvious. Being bearers of such needed help to each other is something we understand with age when we get exhausted of being adults. Then we see that not only can we give, but we can also receive.
But on this path to understanding why we mingle in each other’s lives, there was something I failed to see, which is coming to me right now in my 50s. Something my mind was not open to, even though it always was in front of me. I even get a little surprised — oh, maybe a lot — surprised that I didn’t get it before. Sometimes people just come into our lives because of love. To love. Or to be loved. Just give it without reservations or expectations. Or take it when we offer. Sometimes it matches, and it becomes beautiful and divine. A magical dance tangled with waves of sensations, memories, passion, pain, and tenderness. Fragile vulnerability. Sweet crystal mornings. Sweaty nights. Then it ends. It always does. And we are lucky if death ends it, so it’s not on us. Being torn apart is more painful than if we fell apart.
But love is the reason. Maybe the main reason we pop up in someone else’s life. And help, and lessons, teaching, learning — all of that are just other aspects of love. Even the painful learning. Even the painful help.
I see it now clearly.
