Compersion is an empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy. It is commonly used to describe when a person experiences positive feelings when a lover is enjoying another relationship. It is an opposite of jealousy.
This is not a new concept for me, but the word, and it’s definition was something a friend told me about a few months ago when things with Misty were really getting started.
I have felt it before. It’s a wonderful and odd feeling – to care about another’s happiness and their happiness with another love. I felt it with Darth and his wife. I remember counselling him (thinking she was in the know about their open marriage), telling him he should reach out to her with his desires – create that intimacy with her. Of course I wasn’t getting the full picture, I thought this woman knew she was sharing him. I wanted them to be happy. I knew he loved her, and she loved him and I wanted them to be happy, connected and all that goodness.
And I feel that with Misty and his/her wife. Hugely. I want them to be happy together and love each other. He loves her, she loves him – that is wonderful and so damn good. Sometimes the logistics of everything are hard to wrap my head around though… how can I be needed? Wanted? And does my love for her/him have a place? God, I am so making this shit up as I go… but I know if it came down to me making things harder rather than better, I would leave. I would be heartbroken and a mess, but I don’t want to be something that hurts. There are no good feelings there. I want to always be true to me, and that means living in the open with honesty – this is who I am, this is how I feel (careful, I have a lot of feels – it can be a tsunami) and I want to do no harm in the process.
In light of the last few weeks I have had to think of compersion a bit differently – there may come a time when I watch Misty fall in love with someone else. It’s heart stopping. It’s that feeling like the ride has sped up and you want it to stop or slow back down, so you can get off, or possibly throw up. Why is this so scary? I know there are no guarantees so why does this feel me with such anxiety?
I’m not entirely sure, but I know there are parts of me that are still very broken. I want to believe that my heart is big enough to always want the person I love to be happy. I want to always look into her/his smiling eyes and feel the glow of his/her happiness – even if I am not a cause of it.
You know, I still wish Darth happiness… I hope he pulled things together for himself, and his behavior is congruent with what he values. There is a part of me that will always love him, even though he treated me so very poorly. (Karin, don’t throw shit at me!)
In the end, I want to have left warm feelings in the hearts and lives of the people I have loved.