It was horrible. There was no other way to describe it. As much of a simple and dull statement as that sounds, that’s exactly what it was. I guess could go with “It was a heart-breaking transition that changed me” or “It was like a vacuum that sucked the life out of me” or “It made me feel discarded and worthless”. There’s a variety of ways I could say this to you, to try to get you to feel what I was feeling. But horrible, horrible is the only word needed.
I think of my mother when I use this word, she uses it often when describing something that has brought her great pain. If you could hear her voice when she says it, “It was horrible” with a silence that floats behind those words and drifts to the floor as she thinks back to what it felt like. Maybe you would also need to see the expression on her face, her crinkled nose, curled lips, a look of pain in her eyes masked by disgust. She feels it so deep inside her, the ill feelings of it emanate from her when those words are spewed from her mouth. There is no other word I need to use to describe what it was like, it was horrible.
It took me months to get to the other side of it, and yet still at times I have remanence of it poking me on random days, at odd hours. There was once a continuity with the conversations I was having with myself. Mornings, noons and nights, piecing together a puzzle of memories, picking and choosing the realities I wanted to use. I thought surrender and acceptance would come easy, and it did with the loss of the physical matter. But what did not come easy was what I was left with, the acceptance of my choices.
I had put a lot into it, I was changing my life, arranging my future. I was relying on someone, trusting someone. And it’s not that I was trusting “someone”, it’s that I was believing in the future we were making. I had put all my eggs into her basket, I stopped living my life here, stopped working towards singular stability, and when it ended, I was left with less than what I started with.
There can be no blame for two people growing apart, in my experience nothing is forever. Everything is always changing, people, places and things, feelings and emotions. All solid matter is made up of atoms, atoms vibrating at high rates of speed, constantly moving, constantly changing. Cells are made and then deteriorate. Feelings are felt and forgotten, emotions run high and low. Everything is always changing. To try and resist change is pointless, it only brings on more pain, more sadness, and a struggle against reality. I seem to resist in the smallest of ways, and resisting in the smallest of ways leads me to resisting in larger ways, it’s the domino effect.
I did not resist the end of this relationship, she sent a text, a text... I didn’t argue her desires for something simpler, I agreed. “Yes, that is fine” I replied. I will not try and keep someone around if leaving is their desire. Besides, I knew our time was done well before she ever sent the text. We intuitively know when enough is enough, but it is fear that stops us from pressing beyond the knowledge and into action. There was fear on my part. I was caught in the middle of two lives, one I was living here and the other I was living with her 60 miles away, and in the end both these lives had very little of me in them.
I transitioned every weekend for a year, 5 days here, 2 days there, 3 days there, 4 days here. Half my clothes, half of me, half my life - struggling to find balance as I traipsed back and forth along the 101. Constantly navigating peaks and valleys in my life and in the relationship. I had given up on us a time or two over the years but kept going back, what I saw for our future was beautiful and soft and kind and loving and everything I had lost in past relationships. I believed if I just tried a little harder, if I was more malleable, I would find equanimity in the relationship and I would be happy. I continued on even with a feeling somewhere inside me that said it would never work, I would never be the person she was trying to change me into, and she would never be the stability I needed.
We use love as a reason to stay, “Well I really love them.” Love is not a reason to stay, if anything it should be the reason to leave. Love should not be the anchor to the sinking boat that is your relationship, it should be your life raft to their freedom. Love can take prisoners, holding people hostage with attachment and desires for it. “Don’t you see I love you” is uttered in times of dire straits. “Don’t you see your love is killing me” they reply. Our selfishness, our fear, controlling and manipulating. I’ve lived this scenario before.
But this time it was different, it was, “I am unhappy, but I will stay because I love you and I have hope.” I was middle aged, living two lives, renting a room, abandoning recovery, depressed and just wanting the honeymoon faze to be reborn into the relationship. I was surviving on daydreams of the future and sweet memories of the past, all the while contorting myself to fit into a world that I was no longer meant to be in.
Now, all of that is over. My mental obsession to it gone, I am no longer having conversations with her in my head. The sadness and anger nonexistent, no longer complaining about the lack of compassion I received, or the way she ended it. It was no longer about a breakup, but about me and where I was in life. My sadness lived in the fact that I spent so much time building down there, that I built nothing for myself here. It felt as if I was starting from scratch.
This transition, these realizations took me deep into depression in the months following that breakup. I did all I could to get out of it, made plans, took trips, reached out to old friends, went to meetings, but it only gave me momentary smiles. I wasn’t ok with me or my earthly state of being. If it was just a broken heart I wouldn’t have gone so deep into the depression, but it wasn’t that simple. It was the loss of direction, it was the loss of a life I was building. And my biggest loss, was the loss of that connection. That connection to something greater than myself, that connection to you, that connection to everyone and everything around me. I didn’t know it then, but I had been filling the God hole with everything but my spirituality.
One would think that after 20+ years of living this spiritual life that I wouldn’t get so lost. That I would see the trails leading off the path and I would correct my course. One would think I had this mastered by now. I haven’t, and I don’t know if I ever will. One could say all things happen as they should and veering off the path does not exist. That any path you are on is the one you are meant to be on. One could also argue that a choice is a choice and choosing is free will and the universe cannot choose for you, so the path you are on is your choice and is not “meant to be”. I guess it depends on your belief, and I fall somewhere in the middle of both.
My acceptance of self and life hinges on my connection to God, and living a spiritual life. Prayer and meditation, the prayers for you, the meditation for me. If I could only affix myself to this way, I would have no sadness or difficulties in my life. If I held fast to that lifestyle, I would never have a grievance with anyone or anything. I would stop making everything about me, I wouldn’t live in fear, I could choose any path to walk, and it would be the correct one. I wouldn’t worry about retirement, I wouldn’t fear feelings, I wouldn’t regret choices I’ve made. I would be in a constant contact with something greater than myself, kindness, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance. I would be at peace.
So now I start over, I keep building on what I have. Where my view started out as starting from scratch, it is now starting from where I am, there is no scratch. There is no scratch, no good, no bad, no right, no wrong. Everything is as it should be, as it always has been. When I let go and surrender, when I stop clinging, I am freed of self and all my indulgences. I become one with everything and everyone around me. I no longer have to live with negative feelings, no longer controlled by emotions or fears, I become centered.
And one day all this will be a distant memory, I will share about it when needing to relate to a time that I stayed clean when I didn't think I was going to be able to. As the dust has been collecting on this past 18 months I can see myself trying again. Willing to be swept off my feet by a beautiful face and adorning eyes. Getting lost in her kiss as skyrockets and piccolo petes scream and explode inside me. I'll leave work early, stay up late and neglect responsibilities. One day I'll be caught up again in best feeling ever felt, I will be in love.
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