Schrödinger discovered it. Einstein studied it. We are left grappling with what it means...
In short, it is the phenomena when quantum particles become so intertwined with each other (entangled) that they lose their ability to act independently anymore...even when they are physically separated, for some time, they still behave as if they are entangled. The particles lose their individuality and behave as a single entity.
You already know where I am going with this...
While it may be a phenomena in physics, we see it happen all the time in love. Partners who have been together for years suddenly dying even though in good health when their partner dies. What happened to one, happened to the other.
We see it in breakups. One person removed from the relationship but the other person so entangled with the other that they are not able to let go, move on and begin again with someone new. Their heart and lives entangled with the other despite the very clear separateness that exists between the former lovers.
Is there a force that causes us to be so rearranged by our contact with another that we remain connected to them so much that we lose our single entity status? Did we ever really have single entity status to begin with? Exactly where is that line anyway?
I will admit that while I am mostly free of my quantum entanglement, it took a fucking long time. And there are still times when I am not sure that I am completely free. I want to be free. I want to move on. I feel ready to move on but there are things that could happen that could draw me back in: a health crisis, child crisis. I know that I should eliminate both of those, but I can’t seem to.
Most breakups are relatively easy in quantum terms. The connection never so great that one person loses their single entity status. In fact the entire relationship really didn’t alter their composition all that much. I have had a ton of those. Relationships that I was in but not of. I participated and enjoyed my time but did not really give myself over to the relationship, the commitment. I was not entangled except perhaps in daily tasks, daily life so the extrication was fairly benign. I had to get used to them not being in my life and me in theirs. Sometimes this takes longer than others...
Marriages tend to take some time to end. The lives so intertwined that the separation takes a minute. But very often I see that emotional lives have been disconnected for years. One partner has left the marriage and often both, long before the marriage officially ends.
The most painful divorces I see is where the people are very much still emotionally entangled but are very bad for each other on a variety of levels. The end has to come but the heart (well at least one heart) wants to keep going, needs to keep going.
Is it really possible for our entire chemistry and atomic structure to become altered by a love entanglement?
I think it is...if we are lucky.
I think that I treated love as mostly transactional all my life. I am not proud of this, it is just truth. I entered, well part of me entered and I loved and gave and related but not so much of myself that I was forever altered. Sure some shit went down but I walked away relatively unscathed.
And then one day, without my permission or consent, I became entangled. Horrifically beautifully entangled. And I am not the same. I am forever altered and for a long time, I could not return to my single entity status. I tried, repeatedly, but failed. I think in large part because I didn’t want to, but also because I could not stop my heart from loving this person who was no longer present.
When I thought about this concept the other day and did a little research, I realized that I was really quite blessed to have experiences the phenomena. Many people go to their graves, closely tied to others but relatively untouched on a quantum level.
As you can imagine, having your entire interior, your cellular make up rearranged and then commanded by another is quite a painful process. Which led me to the question: if some particles can become so entangled with each other that they are forever still acting like they did when they are entangled, why bother to separate? Why bother to do the work to try to return to the single entity status of before? Why not just remain connected? Is there some physical law that operates without our knowing that keeps us tethered? Is it better this way or would we all be better off if we were released?
Clearly I haven’t a fucking clue. Thus, the blog about it at 4 am on a Thursday.
But I wonder. And I think that is where the magic happens for me. I think about it. I ponder it. I take it on hikes and walks, I write shit down about it. I allow the thoughts and attendant emotions to stir inside my flesh so that I produce new thoughts, new mental machinations that provide me with clarity, compassion and sometimes a bad case of heartburn...
Love is a fickle business. One day you are deeply intertwined, seemingly so much that separation is not possible or plausible. The next day it is all done. Over. Finished except for the details of actual separation. Who gets the iron? Who gets the pan?
But perhaps that isn’t love. Perhaps that is something else, some other kind of entanglement that we don’t completely understand yet. Perhaps, love, by definition, rearranges our molecules and makes us something different than we were before, love keeps us tethered in heart and mind if not in body. We remain chained in spirit often because we want to feel connected to something, to someone. To feel like we are anchored to someone in this life.
Fuck. I really don’t know.
Being alone is fine. Being in love is hard. Staying in love appears often impossible to me given what I do in my day job. I do know that I have only had the privilege of one quantum entanglement that changed everything for me. I still operate, though far less than I used to, feeling connected to him, but the more time passes the less I behave like he is still reverberating in my cells. The process seeming to take way too fucking long while also feeling short and abrupt.
I want to move on, to take another quantum leap with someone else. Really. But the more time passes, I think, I feel that perhaps I was just lucky enough to get the one. That the rest of my days to be spent unpacking the one who rearranged me. And finding a way to live the rest of my days altered and separate.
Heartbreak is a funny thing. I think I feared it so all my life because I intuitively knew that once I was all in, I might not ever come back. Well that remains to be seen. I open, soften and allow, tilling the fertile soil so that love might again grow. But as the farmer scratches his head looking for rain, I do too. Wondering, if I am relegated to being forever tied to the one who captured my heart and then in a fission like manner, blew us all apart.
Perhaps I should remember what I learned in high school physics class...I really don’t get it at all.
