Good Good-Byes/Voted Off the Island

Today is an odd day.   A couple of remarkable things happened.  The day started talking with Kaveh, my therapist - phone call at 7AM.  He led the discussion to talking about therapy wrapping up.  I was surprised.  We've been together for over four years and it seems he feels the objectives of the therapy have been largely met - that I'm ready to graduate.  Wow!  Fist off, that dispels the thought that therapy is for life.  Kaveh says one should seek therapy to live, not live for therapy. Today he said it's often, once the therapy has ended, that you see the big rewards, kind of like a surgical procedure.  Six months ago, I would have been in a tailspin over today's discussion - today, I'm surprisingly OK with the thought of the therapy being a wrap - proud actually.  It feels like a major achievement to have your therapist tell you that, despite your unhappiness, you're really OK - and to agree with him.

Second, I got voted off the family island.   I had planned to go to Boston to do Thanksgiving with my family.  It was sure to be interesting given that my mother moved there to live with my sister a month ago without us saying good-bye.   Also my youngest brother and his wife, who I haven't spoken with in years over a tiff, will be there, as well as my other brother and his wife coming from Manhattan.  At first my sister was jazzed with the idea of me coming, but today she told me not to come after all.   She didn't say as much, but I'm pretty sure that, when the family was canvassed, they didn't want me there.  So, yeah, it seems I was voted out of the family.  Wow.  What to make of that?  In all fairness to them, it really is a case of  reap what you sow.   I chose estrangement from family members and now I have to live with the product of that decision - estrangement.   I don't get to decide unilaterally when and how there will be engagement.  Other people have a say as well and they have spoken.

On the dating front, nice to meet Arthur last night.   I thought he was smitten but today he is reticent which surprises me.  The old Sarah would say, "Seriously!  You think you have more to offer than me?!   You think you are more attractive than me?!  You've got to be kidding!"  Or at least I would have thought that and conducted myself accordingly, pushing for a victorious outcome where I got to be the decider.   Never taking no for an answer, pushing, pushing, pushing on the closed door that has been there my entire life and that has never yielded to my cries, pleas, anger, violence.   Now I'm just bemused.   I have a wait and see attitude towards life these days.  I think I am done pushing and forcing.   I want to see what the cosmos offers up.   If I meet someone and despite my interest, nothing progresses, then my conclusion will be that the door closed so another could open, that there is a guiding hand, pages in a book that are turning with a plot that is unfolding.   It's fascinating.

Kaveh said he has been learning more and studying about the importance of good good-byes.   He said they are rare and worth striving for.  He wants us to have a good good-bye, one that is long but not too long, that celebrates the work we've done and memorializes the relationship.  He hopes to live in my heart forever - I told him he will - that I no longer feel as if my life were perched on a wet paper towel.  His care and love have given me a strong underpinning that I didn't have before, like strong upholstery webbing that holds a couch together, or even a sturdy trampoline that catches you and propels you upwards.   His timing is uncanny or maybe deliberate.   He knows I'm stuck in trying to say another good-bye.   Often the work he and I do is practice for the real world.   I think he wants to give me a template for what a good good-bye should look like so I can have other good good-byes.  So is it weird to think that, by experiencing the loss of him, I will be calmer and better equipped for other losses?   That I could actually get good at this whole loss thing?  Now that is something to strive for.

My goal today is to meet these latest challenges without alarm - let events flow over me without struggling or fighting.   I think of Aslan, the lion, in the Narnia books.   He was a formidable fighter but in the end he could only prevail by surrendering.   I am strangely OK with everything that is happening: the date disappointment, being voted off the family island, the impending loss of my beloved therapist and I'm even starting to accept the other loss as well.    Your challenge today could be thinking about the concept of good good-byes.   Have you ever had one?  Is there someone in your life you will be saying good-bye to soon?  Does the thought make you want to run, weep or bury your head in the sand?   Is there a better way where you can wrap some ceremony around the good-bye and make it a celebration instead of a tragedy?

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is of Kaveh