It's hard to write every day, hard to be upbeat and positive. Today I suffered what to me feels like a huge loss. I logged into my US Cellular voice mail and all my old voice mails had been erased - I guess I hadn't gotten to them in time to resave them. And I guess it's a forward moving thing to let those voice mails go, but there were times when I had to hear his voice, when I would listen to all 20 or so saved messages and remember what it felt like to be loved and happy. So I'm sorry to be weepy today, but I promised you honesty. Was it weird for me to have saved every message he ever left me, even the little nothing ones? Every message, except the break up ones, started the same, "Hey, beautiful girl..." and they mostly ended the same, "I love you baby." I want them back.
Last night James (my wingman) and I went out to sit at the piano bar at Myron and Phil's. My voice coach was playing and he let me sit in. We were there with friends Janet and Kurt. Janet and I sang really well and that made the night special. James and I talked at length about important stuff as we sat in the car at the end of the evening. I told him I was still struggling with the breakup, that I can't understand how someone can go from being in love with you to NOT being in love with you so quickly - it seems impossible to me. I want to know the secret of being able to turn your emotions around so quickly. I want a piece of that. I think, when you are in love with someone, you can decide they are not your path, you can decide to leave them, but I don't think you can decide not to be in love with them.....that is not a head decision. I'm thinking he "logic'ed" his way out of the relationship and that in order to move forward, his head had to battle his heart. I choose to believe that, until he falls in love with someone else, he is still in love with me, contrary to what others say. I know he won't act on it...it's really not even that helpful for me to entertain this thought...but it is a better explanation and it makes him more human.
What I realized, that I tried to explain to James, is that the only thing we can count on is change. That every relationship has an arc to it - nothing stays the same. James, Liza and I are best friends these days - we meet each others needs for friendship, support and entertainment. It will not always be this way. James will probably move on to date and make someone new his priority, Liza could move away to be near a good school for the deaf, I will hopefully find myself in a new relationship soon. Our friendship will change - that is the only thing that is certain. And it will be bittersweet....these intensely close days will be lost but there will be something else in its place.
I sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in and realize they come predictably, one after the other. There is a life to the wave - it started somewhere out in the middle of the lake and rolled to shore, swelled and then finished in froth on the beach. As it finished its wave life, other waves lined up behind it to take its place. As of this minute, there are 7.14 billion people on the earth - that is a lot of "waves". I think the Buddhists would have us sit quietly on the beach of life and invite the 7.1 billion other souls to wash over us, to inhabit us however briefly and then move on to make a space for the next. And that is what Kaveh means when he says people come in and out of your life, the only certain thing is that every relationship will end at some point. Accept this and you can relax, appreciate, treasure the time and not cling when the time is up.
For me, the person just learning to love properly, this is a hard lesson. Just when I'm getting good at forming attachments, things change - relationships change or end. Intellectually, I appreciate that the only constant in this world is change and yet, my heart has its fingers in its ears (did you know your heart has ears?!). I can't bear losses. So, what to do, what to do, what should Sarah do? Keep talking, keep writing, keep trying to talk sense to my infant heart. Tell my little self it will be OK - that the ice cream may have melted but there is cake coming soon. Then, soon I will be good at this whole relationship arc thing. I will approach relationships without clingy need and expectation. I will appreciate, from the onset, that the relationship will not be forever, that no amount of magical thinking can bind someone to me. I will give the relationship space to be what it needs to be, to last as long as it serves us both, and when it ends, I will let the wave break over me and I will surrender to that finality - sad, I'm sure, but looking to the horizon for the next adventure. All pretty words...good thoughts certainly, but my skeptical heart wants to throw up....it says, "Bullshit". It still wants what it wants. It is unconvinced - it is not a Buddhist heart. I'm obviously still working on this new way of thinking.
The challenge today is to think back over your life and revisit old relationships, lovers, spouses, friends. Think about the arc of those relationships, when the relationship was new and fresh, when it hummed along and you thought that person would be in your life always, and then when needs changed and the relationship ramped down. You survived the loss? There was someone new that filled the gap, right? If you are feeling the loss of someone, I hope, by reviewing your relationship history, you can be comforted by this fact: people HAVE come and gone from your life and you were fine.
There are so many new people yet to meet....let people go if they need to.
Peace,
Sarah
The challenge today is to think back over your life and revisit old relationships, lovers, spouses, friends. Think about the arc of those relationships, when the relationship was new and fresh, when it hummed along and you thought that person would be in your life always, and then when needs changed and the relationship ramped down. You survived the loss? There was someone new that filled the gap, right? If you are feeling the loss of someone, I hope, by reviewing your relationship history, you can be comforted by this fact: people HAVE come and gone from your life and you were fine.
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When you think about the past you are using Now to do it, so in effect you are losing Now on something you cannot effect.
When a negative idea arises engage the following, is what I am asking/thinking true. Briefly analyze it and understand that, it could be true, but then again it might not be true, or it might happen but then again it might not happen.
Is it better to spend your energy thinking positive than thinking negative even though something might or might not happen, because positive is more productive than negative. The universe will give you what you ask for, so only ask for what you truly want.
Think about how considering the past makes you feel, physically as well as emotionally. If it makes you feel bad, why do it. There is nothing to be gained feeling bad. So why do it!
A common thought is that if we do not want to repeat history we should revisit it. But, if you revisit something negative what will the universe do, Right, give you what you ask for...negative. So don't look to the past to understand what to do in your future, only think positive on what you want now and the universe will give it to you.
An example of this is when you are driving in your car and someone cuts you off in traffic. Most of us have some kind of negative commentary about either the skill set of the other driver or a comment about their whatever.
After you calm down a bit, ask yourself the question, "How did I feel both physically as well as emotionally when I was thinking/saying whatever it was during my upset. I think you will see that you did not feel good at all. That said, you can see that slowly you can avoid having those upsets simply because they don't feel good. And THAT IS positive
All said and done, it is easier than you think to begin to think this way.
A simple way to think is, I am a survivor, nothing can bring me down.
Sometimes the road is bumpy,sometimes smooth
I can and will survive whatever comes my way.
Whew, confusing until you think about it for awhile.
Thank you for sustaining my babble
Larry
You are a Beautiful person
ReplyDeleteLarry
Sarah my dear...
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 19 an older and not so attractive guy conveyed a lesson to me, that people are not all meant to be around indefinitely, that to all things (and relationships) there is a season... It would be nearly twenty years and several intestine-exposing breakups later that I would begin to appreciate that lesson, which is what you're describing here.
Two years past the most devastating breakup I'd experienced, I wrote the following:
Setting the Table
I liken my emotional life to a table, at which there are a fixed number of spaces. When I think of the people who come into my life, only to fizzle and disappoint, I am comforted by the realization that at my "table", when one departs, room is made for another to join and share in a meal. I am happy and grateful - for the richness and diversity of the people in my life, in their stories, capabilities and their presence - and in being present these friends are gifts. To each of you and all of you who share in the richness of this life, I am better for your presence and grateful for what we share.