Let Her Go

Earlier this week, I had some old heartbreak arise. It's a loss I feel like I've processed over and over again, and although the space between those processing times has lengthened over the years, the force of the grief really hasn't changed a whole lot. I guess I find that a little frustrating and I started to wonder if maybe there was something I was missing.

When I'm feeling like that, I like to talk to friends about what I'm going through and then listen to what they say and see if it rings true for me. So I tried talking to a couple of friends about what had come up, which is basically being confronted again with being treated as if you are dead to someone to whom you were once close even though you're still very much alive. One friend told me she thought it was just up for the healing, suggesting that since I've continued to evolve, maybe the me that I am now will be able to process the loss in a different way than the me I was the last time it came up.

Maybe, I said, but I'm not sure this is ever really going to heal. I think maybe it's just going to remain part of me, kind of like my first love says the loss of me is for him, like a bullet lodged in his chest, not threatening to take away his life but always there as a reminder of what isn't. Ok, so that sounds morbid and depressing and he said it a long time ago and probably doesn't even feel like that anymore, but it's illustrative nonetheless.

The other friend said the opposite. She said not to give up on this person just because she'd given up on our friendship. To keep trying. And that didn't sound right to me either, because it wasn't me who closed the door on our friendship, so it doesn't make sense to me that I should be the one to try to open it.

So then I talked to the bodyworker I saw on Tuesday morning about it, and he validated that neither of those felt right to me and put his usual wise words to the in-between space in which I found myself, suggesting I acknowledge the pain, how easy it is for human beings to hurt each other and then operate from that space of hurt instead of a space of love, and acknowledge my vulnerability. And that's it. There's no fix. Just acknowledgement.

I felt a whole lot better walking out of there than I did walking in, as I always do, but it surprised me a little that the wisdom this time seemed so basic. I guess that's because it is basic -- with love comes loss -- and it's our efforts to try to have it some other way that are convoluted.

I'm not positive, but I think maybe this is the reason why, when I woke up this morning, it was this song playing on the internal ipod:

Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go

And for my money, the two verses with the most to say about love and loss are this one:

You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you'll understand why
Everything you touch surely dies

And this one:

Staring at the ceiling in the dark
Same old empty feeling in your heart
'Cause love comes slow and it goes so fast

As for the question posed here:

And you let her go (oh, oh, ooh, oh no)
And you let her go (oh, oh, ooh, oh no)
Will you let her go?

I'll try. A little bit more every time this old wound comes up...