Stubborn Love

My good luck necklace before it broke

I don't remember the origin of this necklace, but I do know that when I got it, I rejected its premise, which is that you put it on, make a wish and wear it until it falls off (the charm is on a piece of thread), and when that happens, your wish is supposed to come true.

For years, I wore it from time to time, and then took it off again, as I do with all my necklaces. Then sometime this fall, I put the necklace on, and, fully admitting I was in need of a good luck charm, I decided to make a wish and leave it on until it broke off.

I was afraid to wish for what I wanted to wish for, so I made it more generic: I wished that I could finally have the partner I've dreamed of having.

This sounds almost too corny to be true, but I assure you it is. After a conversation this morning with with my departed love, I felt like things were falling into place. I felt buoyed by having access again to my person, and I started to really let myself think about the fact that we might just make it. That I might get to have the partner I've been dreaming of, which is, of course, him.

Crawling into bed this evening, my necklace broke. Could be purely coincidental, but it feels more significant than that.

This song has been running through my head over the past few days, and I haven't really been sure why, but tonight it seems pretty perfect:

So keep your head up, keep your love
Keep your head up, my love [x2]
Keep your head up, keep your love

I reckon that's what we both did over the past six months, to the best of our ability. Tried to keep our heads up even though it didn't feel right to either one of us to be apart. Tried to hold onto the love we'd gained from one another. And I guess we did a pretty good job of that.

But that can't hold a candle to having access again to that love -- even in the space where we're in now where I'm not ready to fully embrace it -- I just plain feel better about the world when I let in the love.

All of which makes me really, really grateful that love is so stubborn; feel really, really lucky; and much cooler than I've ever been about a necklace breaking...

Ho Hey

As I'm sure is clear to all readers of this blog, I am really struggling with the loss of my love:

(Ho!) I've been trying to do it right
(Hey!) I've been living a lonely life
(Ho!) I've been sleeping here instead
(Hey!) I've been sleeping in my bed,
(Ho!) I've been sleeping in my bed

This song by The Lumineers really captures the sort of lost at sea feeling with which I've been dealing:

(Ho!) So show me family
(Hey!) All the blood that I would bleed
(Ho!) I don't know where I belong
(Hey!) I don't know where I went wrong
(Ho!) But I can write a song

(Or in my case, I can blog about a song that someone else has written.)

But yesterday I was fortunate to spend some time with a woman who has provided me with spiritual guidance through lots of challenging times in my life, a woman who has helped me release traumatic experiences from my past, a woman I trust. And I got some clarity from seeing her, talking to her, and receiving energy work. Some much needed clarity -- clarity that doesn't necessarily make the loss any easier to bear, but it does help me understand what my job is and what it isn't.

She was talking to me about grief, and I told her that one of the hard parts about this is that it is unlike any grief that I've experienced before. I had a ton of grief when my marriage broke up and I no longer got to tuck my babies in every night and wake up with them every morning. I mourned that loss, and I mourned that loss, and I mourned that loss. And it was a loss. A monumental loss. But I chose it, as a path to peace, for me and for my children. So even in the darkest places, I had that knowing to guide me: this is what you need to do to bring yourself and your children peace. I don't have any such knowing in this case. Au contraire. My knowing in this case is much more along these lines:

I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweet

That's my truth. And I have evidence -- through his words, through shared experiences, through our closeness and our communion with one another -- that it's his truth too.

But -- when faced with the difficulty of navigating a new life and a new career in a new place without the people he's loved and who've loved him for a long time and the mountains in which he feels at home and the bike trails that are his church -- he chose to forgo the ability for us to share experiences, enjoy physical closeness, to commune with each other. Even though he understands that for me to feel loved, (which he wants for me), I need those things to be a part of us, he chose to leave. To go back to what he knew before, to what felt true for him.

And that's, of course, where the grief comes in.

But it doesn't change my truth:

I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart

And that's where it gets confusing. What got clarified for me, though, is that I can hold the space open for him to find our shared truth again. I can, I will, I have to leave that space open.

At the same time, I have to take care of myself in the wake of his choices. I have to recognize that his choice may very well mean that I'll need to let go of him as a potential partner, even though us being together feels like the most natural thing in the world for me, I have to face that we have different needs. That I am unable to meet his need of living close to his people and his mountains. I can do it, and I would do it in a heartbeat, when my kids grow up, but I don't have that to offer now. In turn, he is unable to meet my need of having my love be physically present, to be close to, and spend time together.

And that's the reality of the situation right now.

It may sound like nothing new. But for me, there is a nuance to the clarity that I was lacking before:

I love him, I see us and know us to be partners, and on a spirit level, we so are.

I can see the many ways that embracing this love can enrich both of our lives, all of our lives, because it affects my kids too, but it can't just be my vision. It has to be a shared vision.

But that doesn't mean I have to give it up. I can hold it. I can stay open to what's possible while staying true to myself. I know that might mean getting more or different information about my next partner on a human level, and I know that though that doesn't feel true for me now, I will know if it becomes true and I will be able to embrace it. And if that does happen, I can still hold open the space where he is deserving of this great love, so that he may find the same kind of partner on a human level that we all want and need and deserve:

Love – we need it now
Let's hope for some...

I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweet
(Ho!)