Reframing

I've been known to remark that change is how we know we're alive.  That having been said, I can't say I really anticipated the change that happened this week.  After just over two years, a very deep love relationship has ended.  It ended over our separate and collective unhealed pain.  It ended over confusion, loose ends and the complications of life as adults.  There is no telling what the love will become from here. It is and was dear.  It was, at times, lovely.  But to put it simply it couldn't continue as it had become.

Single, married, divorced, widowed, single... I've been them all.  I've been having what you might call serious relationships since I was 16.  Since then, if I count them, there have been 8 in these 28 years.  That's an average of 3 1/2 lovely years with some very wonderful men.  It is so strange to think of this particular end and us embarking on our individual journeys of healing and becoming well.  I think about how often people heal together but in this case, at this point in our individual lives, it could not be.

Still, this fork in the road has left me wondering, how does love fall apart?  It falls apart when people find resonance within each others pain.  Either deliberately, through habitual patterns, or a lack of harmony in life styles we might find ourselves facing love loss.  It often isn't simple, but it is caused when one person steps into the other person's field of pain in a way that brings that pain forward. We simply found ourselves stepping in each other's pain too often. We found ourselves needing our individual space to continue to heal.

This separation is punctuated by my leaving my job to pursue work that is more about nurturing, healing and celebrating joy.  This time I have set aside for myself is one for introspection and contemplation about who I am, where I am going and whom I wish to become.  It is a time for reflection on a life: past, present and infinite future. The fact that the future is beset with infinite possibilities for joy is one beautiful thing that I have learned in this relationship.  I recognize I need to also consider this for myself if I am to be a good lover.

Two years ago, I was told, "I want to love you for a long time."  Although, that is clearly true, the love has taken a different form.  It deeply saddens me to see that we have found ourselves here in our separate worlds, but I understand.  I also know that now isn't the time to predict the future of something that is so independent from me.  Although I participate in where this goes, I cannot solely determine who we become.  I can only participate in becoming...myself.

How do I go about finding that kind of joy?

I look back on my early loves and in particular my earliest love -- innocent and joyful. Yes, that ended, but the end was more of an immature whim than working within the shadow of an entire adult life.  And so I look back on that, and find the key in finding that joy is in honoring my maturity while celebrating shared gifts and dreams.

It seems to me that the answer is in the rejuvenating moments of peace and love.  It is looking in amazement through someone else's eyes at the beauty of the world and acting in harmony to celebrate that.  It is creating safety and nurturing care.  When love becomes the business of the day; when it becomes a competition between lifestyles, ideals, goals, knowledge bases; when we get set on our way of doing things or become afraid or distrustful; we lose the ability to nurture and create that place of safety and healing.

Every step forward into the future opens up infinite possibilities if we are truly awake to them. So, in this space of emptiness and loss, I recognize that it is not loss, but an opportunity to become right with myself. This space of emptiness is an opportunity to celebrate impermanence. This space of emptiness is an opportunity to reframe what I want for myself; who I want to be with a lover. I want to offer a place of nurturing safety, of kindness; of compassion.  I want to create a space of beauty that reflects the beauty and joy in our lives and the soft buoying support that moves life forward.  I want it to be a dream space, a learning space and a sharing space.

That's a gift I can offer to myself and, through joyful love, offer myself to this world.