Periwinkle, your description of being emotionally hooked to a tender and beautiful long-ago moment, one that has become timeless, touches me deeply. Though its still haunting you does ‘feel’ disruptive to your current relationship, there are ways to release its ‘hunger’ element and to learn to cherish its message to you. In my long lifetime as a sensitive female, this kind of radiant primal attachment has been my own situation a time or two, and still revisits now and then. It’s possible to cherish these threads woven into our being without feeling ‘caught’ and held back by them. The luminous magic that woke up within you through falling for ‘Ron’ back then still calls to your heart. In inner growth, it’s like a message from your best self now that you’re reaching for meaning in adulthood.

This troubling ache may be saying something to you like,”Hey, Periwinkle123 — please hear me: I see you holding the rich, trusting pulse of love that struck you so profoundly then. But you’re holding this memory/hope like a secret lantern, as if I (the idea of ‘Ron’) am something outside yourself.  Something that is missing, that’s not yet your own. But actually, I — this idea of perfect trusting tender connection — am a source of loving light within You. I’m right here, in your consciousness. Please let me open your heart fully here and now. Let this kind of love flow from memory and deepest awareness into your daily life as you are living it. Please set me free. Let me be a current of compassion and loving attention for those you care for. Bless their hearts through me … I am lingering and nudging you to remind you that you can BE what I represent for you. I am here to serve your loving vitality as you gently let me loose into your daily life.”

Put in other terms, it’s as if Eros’s (Cupid’s) arrow pierced your heart when you parted from this boy and never reunited. ‘Ron’ is the symbol chosen by your wise Inner Self to hold this light for you, and to carry this invitation for you. The arrow’s wound doesn’t need to heal when it can serve to keep your own heart open and glowing. Maybe — if you find ways to open your heart fully to living and loving in the present, you CAN redirect your aching, tender search outward, to flow through you  gently into those imperfect, wonderful people you love. And to illuminate everything within and around you with its light, alive and real in the lantern of your own heart. Imagine that … how beautiful for that ‘Ron’ encounter to warm your entire experience with others in the world …

If this makes any sense to you, may it help. The memory and the longing for that eternal flame of connection are one and the same, and the power is your own to awaken and release into Now. When this process comes alive, it is a lovely kind of relief — and best of all, you do not lose the magic: you simply transform it from a burden into a blessing. My own ‘Murray”, and ‘Walden,’ and ‘Robin’ are all still here with me, now nourishing my own ability to love, love, and love — both others and my own precious self. Hope it can be so for you too.