One sunny morning in Canggu when Mark and I were waiting for his surf instructor, a Balinese woman appeared in the open space next to us and began blessing her storefront with the day’s offerings.
She laid out colorful woven baskets, filled with flowers, incense, and bits of rice. Curls of smoke danced through the air and tickled our noses.
As she bowed her head in silence, I wondered what she was praying about.
When she opened her eyes, she dipped a small bristled brush in holy water and sprinkled each offering three times.
Mark turned to me and said: “She does it in threes. Once for each of the Gods. Brahma, the Creator. Shiva, the Destroyer. And Vishnu, the Protector.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, mesmerized by her movements.
“You see how she puts one offering on the altar and the other on the ground? The altar represents heaven, where the Gods live. The one on the ground is to satisfy the demons, so they stay below where they belong. It’s important to the Balinese to recognize both.”
“Hmm,” I murmured again, intrigued by what Mark had to say. I was always intrigued by what Mark had to say. It was one of the reasons I liked him.
When her ritual was complete, the woman rose to her feet and disappeared at the back of the store. Not long after, Mark’s surf instructor arrived and brought us to the beach.
I forgot all about demons and Gods.
When Mark and I got complete on what happened between us, there was something I didn’t tell him. It was towards the end of our conversation, at the most important part.
I asked him where he wanted to go from here and he replied with words I didn’t want to hear.
“I’d like to be friends,” he said.
Smiling weakly, I agreed, and so we became friends.
Over the next few weeks, my heart would simultaneously break and strengthen. When he reached out, I was warm and sweet. When he didn’t, I didn’t. I decided that being friends was the most loving thing I could do for him and the most loving thing I could do for me, was not to be. What we had in Bali was just that—what we had in Bali. And that’s where it would stay.
As longer periods of space stretched between conversation, I found myself forgetting. Like a spell weakening and wearing off, I woke up to my life and all of the good things happening in it.
Then, my birthday came.
And he was silent.
On a day where I really hoped to hear from him, he said nothing.
The hurt came back to haunt me. I spent an evening immersed in photographs and snippets of video I took in Bali. It’s almost as if I knew I needed to freeze those moments; as if I knew they wouldn’t last. A dull ache settled in my heart and spread to my mind and mood, like a cancer you can’t get rid of.
How had I felt so free days before?
How had I finally been able to breathe, only now to suffocate?
What you resist, persists.
– Carl Jung
What I thought was the most loving thing to do was no longer the most loving thing to do. When Truth is withheld and hidden, even and especially from yourself, it becomes a poison. Truth was killing me slowly. It was eating me alive, from the inside out.
Truth: I don’t want to be friends.
Truth: I don’t want to move on.
Truth: My body still yearns for the curve of yours.
Truth: What happened in Bali felt like a beginning, not an end.
Truth: There’s a fine line between love and poison.
My mind flashed to a woman blessing her store front, to Mark’s arm braided in mine, to sticky air and incense, to demons and Gods.
Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is destroy what’s not working. When Mark wasn’t ready to give me what I wanted, I destroyed what we had.
Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is protect yourself. When it didn’t look like Mark wanted what I wanted, I protected myself by letting him go.
And other times still, love is risking.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is gift yourself the chance to create something new.
We all have Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma inside of us. We all have the power to destroy, to protect, to create.
The key is to let love be their compass.
And decide who North gets to be, moment to moment.
When Mark finally wished me the sweetest of happy birthdays days later, I picked up the phone with shaky fingers—
“Mark, I don’t want to be friends, I want to start over.
I want more with you.
What do you think about giving this a shot?”
Don’t mistake self-suppression for self-protection.
Even demons can dress up like Gods.
With love & freedom,
-Kayla
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