This week I learned that my first boyfriend recently had a grand mal seizure, and when he went to the hospital they found and successfully removed a brain tumor, which was cancerous.
I was 18 when we broke up, and haven't heard much from him since, but the news still hit me pretty hard. It was one of those people are mortal, even my people, and they won't all always be okay kind of realizations that aren't that fun to have.
Speaking of not fun, this morning I ran into a friend's ex-boyfriend at my favorite coffee shop. He's super sad about their breakup, and always wants to talk about it when I see him because I'm the only person that knows them both. And I feel for him - oh man, do I feel for him. He's in the why does something so senseless have to happen to me phase, and I remember that phase very well.
Luckily, as I told him, I'm on the other side of it now, and I was able to share the lessons I learned by going through that crazy painful process of grieving my lover once removed:
1) Don't try to figure out why, or ask yourself what you could or should have done differently. You did the best you could and you can't expect more from yourself than that. Plus, even if you could figure out why, it wouldn't make it hurt any less.
2) If it seems senseless, it may just be senseless. Senseless things happen in this life every day. People sometimes have to bury their children. Accidents disfigure people forever. Loves that we felt were oh-so-right sometimes don't work out. We don't get to make sense of these things. We just have to learn to live in the new reality.
3) Trust that this loss is happening to you for a reason, that there is something to be gained for YOU here. I gained SO much from my own grieving process. I know that I'm way more capable than I was before that loss of being the kind of partner that I want to be to the man I love.
4) Believe in a world where if you lose a great love, they either eventually come back when you're both in different, better places or you fall in love with someone else and it's just as great a love as the one you lost. Those are the only two outcomes in my Universe, anyway. You know what the Universe says: Thoughts become things. Choose the good ones!
Heard
this song in the car today, and it struck just the right chord for a girl who found out an old friend has cancer, is helping another friend through a breakup, and is gearing up for a beautiful weekend on Lake Superior:
There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light
In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right
And it comes in black and it comes in white
And I'm frightened by those that don't see it
When nothing is owed or deserved or expected
And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected
If you're loved by someone, you're never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it
There was a dream and one day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it
And there was a kid with a head full of doubt
So I'll scream til I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out
There's a darkness upon you that's flooded in light
And in the fine print they tell you what's wrong and what's right
And it flies by day and it flies by night
And I'm frightened by those that don't see it
And the best news of all is that my special super bright bike light came today -- so when the darkness comes upon me in Copper Harbor, it
will be flooded in light -- road full of promise indeed!
