letting go of a best friend

The man i split up with this winter was someone very special to me, and there have been many layers to the completion of this relationship. This is life - peeling away one layer after another; it is beautiful, and somehow, it only gets more beautiful the more i embrace the broad spectrum of feeling.

When he and i got together, we did not realize that we had known each other as children. Then came the realization that when he was 8yrs old and i was 4, we were play pals. A clear memory came back to me that he had fallen out of the loft in my mother's house while trying to climb down the ladder backwards. my mom had tried to get him to turn around, and amazingly enough, in my 4year old mind, i remember thinking how silly he was in trying to show off -

and then he fell.

he still has the scar in his lip to prove it.

what a metaphor there is in all of that.. his stubbornness in doing things his way.. (i can't say i am much different in that department...)

and his falling...

and the scar in his lip.. and in his heart, there to prove it.

there was certainly a great kinship and love between us - though in many ways we were like brother and sister. there is no way i could encapsulate our relationship here in these words, as i risk trivializing it. each relationship is a way of learning, and it can be hard to know how and when to end it.

there are so many seasons and changes a person goes through, and this is particularly pronounced when we are young. And part of the.. long-range success of a relationship seems to be dependent upon whether two people can weather all these changes together. yet, what i see as a big part of this is really whether two people can learn to truly be themselves within a relationship and whether the other person supports that wholeness. it takes two people standing on their own two feet.

how common is that though?

well, anyway.. i was learning to stand on my own feet and step into my power as a woman, and as i did this, the relationship just seemed to crumble around me.. and no matter how much i tried to patch it up, more and more holes just appeared, until i finally found myself taking the whole thing down stone by stone.

although we each played our part, i found myself being the one who was firm and unwavering in our separation - at a certain point i knew there was no moving forward together. there were too many huge gaps in our priorities and desires. i remember standing in our kitchen together, embracing, and him telling me he still held hope for the future. i pulled away and looked at him - "No. this is it."

he did not really know how to be without me.. or the hope of me, and i did not know how to be alone.

so, now, almost 9 months later i have not only withstood my aloneness, but relished in it. And he has moved on... seeing someone much more suited to his temperament.

someone said i was a 'can-opener' for him. since our split, he is taking better care of himself, making more money, traveling a lot... The ache of losing me pushed him into healthier and more fulfilling ways of being.

of course, a similar thing happened for me as well. i have truly embarked on a journey, which would not have been possible with him in the picture.

i have also come to examine my ways of being in a relationship, and various behaviors, which do not serve myself or the other. i realized that i didn't really know how to allow myself to be nurtured by someone - even though i wanted to be. i realized i didn't quite know how to fill my own cup first.. And i came to see the various ways i was dependent upon him -

now i can't put on my 'pouty face' and say... 'babe... could you please do the dishes...?' pout pout.

the dishes are just there, no matter how bad of a day i have had.. and they are always my dishes.

why am i writing about this? simple - it is healing for me. i never imagined all the layers of myself i would peel away during the process of letting go and living alone. i never knew how long it would take to really let it all go, or come to terms with losing a best friend. because i was the one to be very firm in ending it all, i didn't know how to truly grieve that loss until many months later. i wouldn't let myself deeply feel or remember all the good that had been between us until i felt the bond had been severed.

of course there are many, many reasons a relationship may need to end, and i won't go into all that here. but, ultimately for me, in a very personal way, i needed to go deeper within myself - and sometimes letting someone go is how we can go deeper into life and find what it is we have to give to the world and not just one person. somehow, i also believe that when we embark on this journey of self-discovery, we bring ourselves to a place where a relationship with another person can truly flourish. it comes down to having a true, deep, and loving relationship with our own self.