The Pedestal

In her eyes, he was the complete embodiment of perfection. He could never make mistakes. She saw him in this glowing light from the very first time they had met. The thought of him was enough to make her smile and being around him always filled her heart with a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling. These days, however, things weren’t quite the same. She felt lonely and hurt. She just could not understand his actions. She knew something was wrong with her because everything was right with him. Why was she so flawed? What could she do to be as perfect as him? Her inadequacies and faults frustrated her.

He could see the hurt in her eyes. He wished he could ease her pain. But he felt completely helpless. He remembered the first time they had met – she used to always have a merry twinkle in her eyes and her chirpy voice always lightened everyone’s moods. He wished he could restore her old self but he did not have the skills. Repairing people and bringing out the best in them was her gift.  Even if he desired, there was nothing he could do to fix things. He wondered what had gone wrong. Why was she not able to be the paramount version of herself?

She had put him on a high pedestal. Thus, she had given up her power and started believing that she was just not good enough. Whenever she thought of him, only his good qualities dominated the foreground of her perception. He just did not seem to possess any negative qualities. Trouble had started brewing for her the moment external circumstances tried showing her that this state of grace was just a temporary phase. She was not ready to let go off her beliefs.

He was also not in a good place. As long as she continued to believe in her own projection, she could never see him as a person who also had flaws and issues. Initially, he had enjoyed seeing himself as perfect through her eyes but he kept wishing that she had not believed in that illusion. By entertaining the illusion that he was perfect, she had deprived him of the space to be human. He always had to think a million times before acting. Yet there were quite a few times that he had slipped. Each time he made an error in judgment or acted in contradiction to her idea of perfection, he could see her closing up and distancing herself from him. She did not want to become disillusioned. The very thought made her so angry!

She knew he was not to blame for the fact that she idealized him. She wished she could just accept that no one is perfect – we are all a combination of human and divine qualities and each day, we struggle to maintain a balance. The more she filled her head with this idea, the easier it became for her to love him with this new-found awareness. She saw that by embracing this idea, she was actually allowing herself for a greater intimacy than when she had held him aloft an airy throne. The moment she could see through her idealized projection was the moment she began to see him as he truly was.

He looked at her and was amazed to see the transformation. After a long time, he felt truly connected to her. They walked on equal grounds together holding hands. Finally they had realized that in life, there are no pedestals. They owned their own divinity as well as their humanity. They had finally discovered the key to balance and wholeness within themselves and their relationship. They were finally at peace.