I shouldn’t have agreed to go.
To the couples’ therapy session we’d waited a month for, I mean. A month that felt like years. A month I couldn’t make it through because I was so exhausted of trying to bridge the gaping chasm that grew so wide between us.
But I agreed, even after I said I couldn’t remain in the relationship. Have you ever had to set a boundary like this with someone you loved deeply? It’s one of the hardest things.
He’d never asked for anything like this. I was surprised when he did.
I realize now I was still waiting for him to meet me. To give me a little piece of something to hold on. Instead I saw that he was done. Instead I saw our pattern play out for the last time; when I don’t feel seen, I am activated. When I am activated, he de-activates. It’s a cycle, and it’s brought us to a stalemate.
I know that I was loved, but I know too that love is not enough. I need deep intimacy and communication, and this cycle we fell into made it impossible for both of us. I tried as hard as I could until it felt so lonely that the only thing that made sense was to try to heal myself.
Someone told me I shouldn’t yearn for little pieces. That from day one my name should be written in lights.
A breakup feels as raw and deep as grief. Even if you know the relationship isn’t working. The love remains, and it doesn’t know where to go. What do you do with everything you wanted to believe? How do you extract yourself from the story?
I’m listening to a lot of podcasts. One particularly useful one suggested that I frame the entire relationship from the first moments to the very end as being predestined. That the ending was as certain as the start, and that all of it has created deeper meaning in my life. I like this. It feels less like I’ve failed, again. More like the Universe wove something beautiful and complex and painful in which I can discover, more deeply, myself.
I have discovered that when I am the one who takes all the initiative in the early days of a relationship, I set myself up to always feel like I’m chasing someone. I have discovered that my subconscious beliefs about love are that anyone I open myself up to will inevitably betray me and leave, and so I select and create circumstances where it is impossible for me to be as vulnerable, as empathetic and as connected as I yearn to be. I have discovered that this betrayal and abandonment began long before I entered the realm of romantic love.
I have discovered that when the sobs wrack me so hard I can’t produce sound, it actually works to hold myself in the fetal position and stroke my own hair.
The trees will continue to remind me of all that is wild and beautiful inside me. I can miss him deep in my bones, remember how sweetly I would sleep beside him, remember how the morning light seemed to create a halo in his messy curls, and I can slowly extract the threads that belong to me and weave them back into myself.
There is someone out there who will love him so much better than I have been able to. The same is true for me.
I have never felt like a half-life. I don’t need someone to help me feel whole. I just wanted to love and be loved. I still want this, but the idea of being open right now feels absurd. I need tending; gentle, daily reminders of how worthy I am. I know I can manage this task myself. I have always enjoyed my own company. When I’m lonely I have an army of witches, healers, mothers and warrior-women to reach for. I have my beautiful children, and my family.
With the new moon I set an intention. I asked to ‘receive’ and I will mend my heart and sink deep into the Feminine and open myself to everything that is meant for me. I will not push, pursue, lead, demand, beg, plead again. I will rest, and I will unfurl like the sweet ferns in the deepest part of the forest.
The light will find me. It always does.