Cupid's Tears

The story and I have been having a big argument. We are getting close to the end, and the story wants to hurry up and get there. I keep telling it that we will get to the end when we get there and not a minute sooner. Sometimes stories don't know the best way to tell themselves. That's especially true of some of the very old stories like this one. It has gotten used to being told one way, and I'm having a hard time getting the story to understand that people listen to stories differently than they did back in the year one hundred. People today are surrounded by stories. There are radio and television stations that do nothing but broadcast news, and what is news except stories? Then there are the stories people see in the movies and on television—love stories, funny stories, stories about murders, robberies, kid-nappings, and on and on. People today probably know more about stories than people did in the year one hundred, which is why I know the people listening to this story have been wondering, "What's up with Cupid? The dude just dropped out of the story."

Well, no, he hasn't. The story says it has no idea what Cupid is doing, because I changed things. You remember the scene when Psyche took the lamp and looked at Cupid, and the oil dropped on him. Well, back in the year one hundred, the burn injured him so severely that he had to stay in bed until it healed. That might have made sense to folks back in one hundred, but people today would not believe something as lame as that. They would say Cupid was a wimp if he was going to go missing in action from a little burn. Plus, Psyche was much too fine to be wasting her time on someone who lets his mama push him around like he was still in a baby carriage. So I told the story this is not the year one hundred, and it can't be telling itself now the way it told itself then. And anyway, I'm doing the telling this time, so the story best sit down and listen.
When we last saw Cupid he was lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, trying to figure out how things got so messed up. In the first place, he had thought that Psyche would be happy with him coming to see her every night. This proves that Cupid did not know anything about women. As much as most women love jewelry, fine clothes, and chocolate, they want to go places so they can show off their jewelry and clothes. They also want to go places so they can show off their husbands, or whomever they are going out with. And they definitely want to know what the person loving them looks like! Cupid did not understand that just because the relationship was fine for him, that did not mean it was fine for Psyche.

The second mistake Cupid made was this: after Psyche disobeyed him and saw who he was, he expected that he could leave her and his life would return to what it was before. That is not how love works. When someone becomes a part of your heart and your soul, you are forever changed. There is no going back to who you were before, because who you were does not exist anymore.
That morning when Cupid flew away from Psyche, he knew he was making a big mistake. He wanted to turn around and go back and tell her he was sorry. But he could not do that because he was still more of a child than he was a man. When a man makes a mistake, when a man hurts the woman he loves, he accepts responsibility for hurting her and tells her so. But if that male is still more child than man, he goes off somewhere and pouts. And if he pouts too long, he gets depressed.

That's why Cupid couldn't do anything except lie there in his bed and stare up at the ceiling, where all he saw was Psyche's face. He would look at it and say, "Why did you have to go and spoil everything? We had a perfect relationship and we would be together now if you had just done what I told you."

But something interesting happened. The more Cupid tried to blame Psyche, the more depressed he got. And that was the best thing that could have happened to him.

I know you must think I'm crazy. Depression is one of the worst feelings there is, but just because you feel bad, it does not mean what is happening to you is bad. (And, Jupiter knows: I have been depressed enough to know what I'm talking about.)

Slowly Cupid began to realize he could not spend his life blaming Psyche, and maybe, just maybe, he was the one who had been at fault. The minute he had that thought, he started moving away from being a child and toward becoming an adult.

Cupid's depression broke. Shame washed over him like wave after wave of ocean water striking the beach. He started to cry, but his tears were not because he missed Psyche. His tears were ones of regret over how he had used Psyche for his own gratification. He had never stopped to think about her and what she might have wanted and needed. There would never be a relationship until what she wanted was as important as what he wanted. And he cried aloud.

Far below, in the cold, dark basement, Psyche heard.

Chapter end