Should's Make Me Uneasy

I think of you fondly. A warm presence comes over me. I reflect on the moments shared. Beautiful moments that remain engraved in my mind. Moments that bring a smile to my face. Each moment a distinct experience. I think of the magnitude of our discussions. The growth that unfolded the moment that we connected with one another. The roles that played out. Teacher, student, friend and beyond. All roles that led to an abysmal ending. And yet you remain present in my mind, a reminder. I don’t know that I feel deep peace or resolve. Does it feel as it should? Does anyone truly believe that blindly, that the universe or the God they believe in somehow plans this out just as it should?

I have always believed in a higher power whomever it ends up being but I cannot follow that blindly enough to believe that things work out how they were intended. That to me seems like an impossibility riddled with lack of choice. We were given this one true life and with that we were given choice. Sure, there are things that happen to us that are NOT our choice. Mental, physical, emotional violations carried out by abusers, sociopaths, politicians etc. All in all, though, we are given the right to choose the outcome of our story.

Does it make us feel better to say that we accept what has happened or does it help with healing because those I believe are distinctly different. Acceptance of an outcome provides us the stepping stone to being able to heal ourselves. Saying that it is as it should be seems somewhat complacent. If something has caused us distress, pain, and a lengthy grief cycle, that tells us that we aren’t where we wanted. When people pass away is it really as it should be? I don’t imagine anyone losing someone, alive or passed feels that things are as they should be. Sure, the person who has passed is in a metaphorically better place, and we hope that they are in the heaven that we have been encouraged to believe in but in the end the people left behind wish that their loved one was still there. The same applies to those lost due to a relationship ending, someone moving away, or losing contact with someone. When something ends it doesn’t feel good. The loss of someone you love or loved doesn’t just get washed away because we have allowed our faith to guide us towards the resolution that things worked out how they should have. Then again, I imagine that this is also subjective just like everything else in life. Each of us given the right to have our own unique experiences of the same situation. No two people grieve the same. No two people experience situations the same. And even with that acknowledgement I don’t buy that things work out how they are supposed to because that tells me I don’t have a choice in the outcome of my life and I absolutely do.

We are in charge of our lives. We are given this life and the people in it and when we don’t show up for them in the ways they need eventually they make the choice to leave or they continue to work through whatever difficulty remains in the relationship and the hope is, it will work out and if it still doesn’t work out, they choose to leave. Leaving another person is a choice. A hard choice yes, but a choice nonetheless. To imply that the universe predetermined that, that would be the outcome seems like something I can’t buy into. I know my actions and choices led to the ending of a relationship that mattered to me. To the outsider looking in or to the active participant I know it didn’t seem like that at the time.

I have professed my arrogance, my choices to not listen, to be rigid, and to lack the empathy required to be an emotionally available partner. During those initial months when things had gotten extremely unmanageable it was like dying every day. Regardless of that, I had a responsibility to the people I was claiming to love to set aside my ego, my needs, my self-regulation and put them above me, I didn’t. The months after the end, the true end, I felt broken, lost, incapable of letting go of last words and exchanges. Every second of everyday trying to make sense of things. Replaying last moments, interactions in my mind trying to sort out what I had missed. Grasping at anything and everything. How had I not truly known that, that last call, text, interaction, email was the last time that I would interact with someone. I spent months ruminating, desperate for answers, seeking the clue to the puzzle I had missed. I felt foolish, alone, and determined to heal the parts of me that could ever think the thoughts that came to the surface those first initial months. That folks was my choice. Rather than die on my sword, lose myself completely to never be found again, I made a choice to heal. Since then, I have been committed to my healing. To healing the parts of me that felt not good enough. The inner recesses of my mind that believed that I got exactly what I deserved because I allowed the notion of karma to guide my thought process.

Outcomes are not how they should be. They are a direct result of the actions taken to get the result. You don’t like the result, then change it. And in the case of our bodies and how they can fail us at any time, that is not as a result of universe aligning things how they should be, it is a direct result of where there is good there is also bad. That while we were taught to believe in the higher power who tends to us and protects us. We live in a world where no matter what we do bad shit still happens. We have to go to appointments that could result in horrible, life changing news, we have to watch the people we love leave us. And of course, it is not always to death but to spread their wings. To see if they can find peace somewhere else. To see what else the world has to offer. Our actions lead both ourselves and others to make choices to come closer to us or distance themselves. It doesn’t hurt any less. It doesn’t feel any better that we can see below the surface of the action or behavior. It doesn’t matter that we can understand why someone would need to do something we wish they wouldn’t do. In the end though, all we can do is accept that the person is choosing to take care of themselves. Choosing to heal. And even if that means we have to let them go in order for them to do that, we do it out of love. And we hope that in their own healing journey they find their way back and if they do not, then they are doing exactly what they choose to do. They are on their chosen destination.

Life is moving so quickly and I am making choices for my life that are healing, scary, challenging parts of me that I didn’t know I could. Embracing change, letting go of control which I never truly had. And even within all that power. I am nostalgic of a past life that seems like it existed so long ago. The fondness, the warmth, envelops me. The shear beauty of the story that came as a result of such difficulty, loss and pain. It is humbling. I wish so often that the outcome were different. And I could write another 1300 words just on this topic. My outcome would not have looked like this nor would it have looked how it was for far too long. Toxic and unhealthy. It would not be what people would expect me to say or what they assume this all would have looked like. None of that however, changes that this is the outcome and it was due to my active participation or lack there of that I am in my outcome and as a result, onward I go.