thoughts on breaking up

I'm writing this mostly as a note to myself, because I want to document this feeling in an attempt to anchor it for future access. I have a tendency to forget important stuff like this.

Just like with most of my previous relationships, after many months of internal hemming and hawing and deliberation, one day I woke up crystal clear that it was time for us to go our separate ways.

When this first happened back in 1997 with the father of my children, the clarity did not come after months of hemming and hawing and deliberation. It came out of the friggin' blue, and it terrified me. I fought it tooth and nail. There was a lot of collateral damage caused by struggling with my own awareness and trying to get it to go away because it was gonna be very difficult to make the changes it was asking of me.

Thankfully, in my relationships since then I've had more warning. And maybe I've directed just a tad less effort into fighting my own clarity - but really, to be honest, not that much less. I still go down arguing with myself every time.

So there are two things I want to remember:

One, that there is no way for me to win a battle with that kind of inner clarity. I may as well forget about trying to supress or change the message. And if I choose fight it anyway, sooner or later I'll exhaust myself and finally accept it.

and Two, these things have a timing all their own, and action does not always necessarily follow immediately on the heels of awareness.

There's such a qualitative difference between that feeling of "should I/shouldn't I" and the YES, NOW when it finally comes. I wrote a note to my future self in my journal to remind her that if she's still deliberating, it's just not time for action yet for reasons she won't have access to. And that it's okay for her to just be honest with herself and her mate, and wait a while until the required action becomes clear as well.

When it IS time, there's no way to miss the signs. That nudge toward action is worth waiting for, because it makes all the icky stuff that comes after it so much easier to take when I'm not wracked with self-doubt.

I shed a lot of tears during the month it took for him to find a new place, many of them in his comforting arms, but they weren't the kind of tears that come from wondering if this is the right thing to do - they were just pure grieving. Pain without suffering. And in a way, they were sweet rather than painful. The day he left, the tears just stopped, and I found myself feeling cleansed and purified like the air after a thunderstorm.

All this to say - when the time is right, I will know it. And until then, all I can do is remain present with myself and the situation as it is.

A friend sent me the gift of profound inspiration in a link to Eckhart Tolle on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPg9DnMP2D4

Oh, yeah, there's one more thing: Three, I am much more resilient than I give myself credit for when I am anticipating a potentially painful situation! This could be the silver lining of having a terrible memory. I don't store past experiences very well, which means I don't have anything to compare the present moment to, and therefore I don't notice it lacking anything. That comes in real handy! When I was wrapped in his arms I would cry thinking I would miss that feeling forever. The first night I slept alone, I was blissfully comfortable under my new blanket and it felt perfect. Go figure.

I hope I never need to read these reminders to myself. I hope my next relationship lasts for the remainder of my lifetime. But, life being what it is, I thought I better take some notes, just in case ... :)