Last night I saw Romeo and Juliet at the local high school theater performance in my town.
I know this play really well. I actually played Juliet in college on stage, so at one time I practically knew the whole play by heart.
And in my life, I have known that whole play by heart.
As I teared up during the finale, when everyone is dead and “all are punished” I also smiled on the inside. These people were crazy! Mega-attached, dramatic, killing themselves with knives, killing other people with swords, weeping and howling and depressive, or manic, or enraged.
In case you don’t remember, Romeo is wildly in love with someone else named Roslyn at the beginning of the play…then he switches in one night to Juliet.
He also actively participates in killing two people, and then of course himself. And Juliet, as we know, also kills herself.
Good lord! No one seemed to know about questioning their thinking….although Shakespeare does appear to have knowledge of this himself. His poetry, prose and plays are filled with awareness of what life could be like beyond this “believing” mind.
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”~William Shakespeare
Now, after being able to ask myself if what I am thinking is actually true or not, in my own opinion and no one else’s opinion, I find the joy of not really knowing, and being aware that some of what I thought was really, seriously true…is not.
So there I was in the past *desperate* for HIM to love me, want me, pay attention to me, talk to me, be with me, call me, write me, email me, stop by, adore me, please me.
We don’t like admitting these kinds of things.
Ha! I say with a chuckle, that was soooooo long ago, when I was a teenager! I’m not like that anymore.
[A very loud buzzer sound just went off]
Oops! Oh, now that I think about it, I had a longing for HIM to come find me as I sat looking out at the beach on vacation LAST WEEK (my husband).
I may not have been all a flutter in quite the same manner as Juliet, or ready to stab myself with a dagger, but these tiny moments are the same.
I need him to listen to me, I want her to be kinder to me, I need him to understand me, I want her to like me, he should talk with me, she should appreciate me, he should contact me, she should call me, he should show up.
That voice or feeling inside appears, it wants something to come from OVER THERE towards ME.
Being here in myself feels somehow not quite interesting enough, even lonely, empty, solitary, purposeless, lost, boring, meaningless.
These sensations or thoughts can happen with our children, friends, parents, bosses or lovers.
Or God, the Universe, Source, Reality. It isn’t close enough, it should be closer, I should feel it right here with me all the time, there is separation, I don’t get this, I need something more…
So what if this sense, thought, or feeling that something is ABSENT is questioned?
What if nothing is absent, missing, or too far away?
Can you imagine who Romeo and Juliet and the whole entire rest of the cast would BE without the thought that something was tragically missing?
Without the thought, if someone is busy, and focused on NOT ME I would remember that I’ve been spared (one of Katie’s little sayings I love).
I’d have an open, excited, curious, smiling feeling on the inside of my whole body.
Looking out at the ocean, last week, without the thought that anyone else should be here looking at the ocean with me, I stare with joy and amazement at the grand sight. Nothing to do, nothing to say, no one else here, just me and the Big Mystery.
Without the thought….sitting, looking, everything slower.
I love that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. He shows so well what happens when we’re believing with a vengeance: fearful, secretive, sneaky, sleepless, worried, banished, cautious, defiant, fighting a war, crazed, terrified.
Who would you be without the thought that you actually need anyone? You might think that you’d be cold, and no one would ever be around, and you’d have no friends, or your children would never call you up.
Find out!
“You are the one you’ve been waiting for”~Byron Katie
And by the way…if you have some sticky little thoughts that sound like needy ones, come on over to do The Work on Dec. 1st. It’s gonna be good! To register click HERE.
Much love, Grace