6 Months and Counting.....

It’s hard to believe that it has been 6 months since we saw one another. I knew this milestone was coming but I didn’t know how it would affect me. As my eyes opened today and I took note of the day ahead, the rain, the darkness, it was so appropriate for how I woke up feeling today. Sad, dark, and somber. I never imagined we would ever be here. When I saw into the future, I didn’t imagine I would be writing that 6 months have lapsed without contact with one another. That definitely caught me off guard and I suppose each month that goes by while it seems to get easier the sting of our harsh reality makes me breathless at times. I never imagined this being the outcome and perhaps that is naïve.

I often have “flashbacks” about moments we shared. They used to be solely the good moments and experiences we had but over the last few months I have had a more realistic interpretation of the experiences that were not good for either of us. I vacillate between both and I am grateful to have had the experiences we did have. Many beautiful and many that taught me a tremendous amount about what is needed in relationship and the work I needed to do before I could show up as a healthy partner. The work I have done to date has not been the easiest. It has been hard but, in the end, I have become more regulated. I am able to listen more to the needs of others, and I am taking care of myself. I still have moments that come up that remind me that while I have come a long way, the work I need to do must continue. It is as important as the air I breath. Some of the people around me don’t understand the level of commitment I make to working on myself. And while in the past I may have spent my time defending myself, I have come to realize that I don’t need to defend myself to anyone especially about the work I am doing to break the toxic patterns in my behavior.

I wonder if this commitment would have been made without these last 6 months. I had been working on myself sure but was inconsistent, very inconsistent. I very much would work on myself, get the result I wanted, and then would stop working on myself. And so, the pattern would repeat. Many times, I refused to see the cycle I kept repeating. I wanted so very much to fill myself with the good. The intoxicating moments and experiences. That was when it was best. When I felt most connected, when I gave myself up completely, with no guards.

I often wonder what the next stage of life will look like. I have grown accustomed to my routine. I have gotten used to what it’s like to sleep alone. What it’s like to walk into an empty space and not feel so sad and angry. I am able to rest more comfortably now. I truly hadn’t realized how much would change just in the last 6 months let alone the last almost year and a half since this journey on my own began.

I made a conscious choice to look at our time together as a beautiful growing experience. It truly was. There are days that all of this feels like a figment of my imagination that I want to go back to first moments and relive them. Some of them were incredibly beautiful moments and I remember each and every finite detail. Details only we will ever be privy to. I don’t know if that will ever be forgotten. I am certain I don’t want to find out.

There were moments that I wasn’t sure if the sobbing would ever stop. I would spend my days numb, moving through the day like a zombie. And the moment I got home I would collapse from the pain and sob for hours until I had to do it all over again the next day. I am far more present these days. I am more present with myself, my people, my clients. I spent so much time not being fully present. I was somewhere else. Always somewhere else. I imagine that there will be days where the intensity of the memories comes creeping back in and I will work through them, and it will be ok. It was always going to be ok even when I thought that I couldn’t survive another day in the solitude. In the loss, in all the replayed moments I begged the universe to give back to me. I begged and pleaded for relief, for a sign I wasn’t going crazy, that what I felt for this person was real. And what time has helped me see is that we were connected. We had a spiritual, physical and metaphysical bond that was real and will forever be real to me and that is enough. No one may ever understand what I have experienced or been through as a result of it all but that is totally ok. Life is a series of lessons, experiences, and a string of moments that I get to hold on to and I am grateful for it all even when it has hurt so bad, I thought I was going to die but I survived and I can say that I learned to never settle for mediocre because I know what exquisite feels like. Not too shabby a lesson if you ask me.