I was sitting at my kitchen table, eating some excellent vegetarian chili and reading “Eat, Pray, Love”*.  The author was recounting a period of time at an Ashram in India where she is speaking with her friends about her guilt over her divorce and her inability to let go.  That night one of her friends takes her to the top of a tower, the tallest place in the Ashram - with a view that overlooks the entire valley below - and leaves her there with a list of instructions:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FREEDOM
1.  Life’s metaphors are God’s instructions.

2. You have just climbed up and above the roof.  There is nothing between you and the Infinite.  Now, let go.

3. The day is ending.  It’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful.  Now, let go.

4.  Your wish for resolution was a prayer.  Your being here is God’s response.  Let go, and watch the stars come out – on the outside and on the inside.

5. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go.

6. With all your heart, forgive him.  FORGIVE YOURSELF, and let him go.

7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering.  Then, let go.

8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cool night.  Let go.

9. When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains.  It’s safe.  Let go.

10. When the past has passed from you at last, let go.  Then climb down and begin the rest of your life.  With great joy.

I got to the end of number three before the tears were flowing and I had to put down the book.  I didn’t cry much, I never do -probably less than a minute total – but I did cry, which is progress.  I am so shut down right now that I am yearning for the release that tears would give me, but somehow I cannot give myself over to them just yet.  Perhaps because there is nowhere I truly feel safe right now.  Nobody I really feel safe with.  I wish I had someone that could be that for me, where I could feel totally safe wrapping myself up in their arms and letting it all go.   I wish there was because I feel the cloud that is hovering over me growing larger, and I feel myself being sucked into the same darkness that consumed me last winter.  I don’t want to go there again.

Although I removed my rings this week, I am still clinging to the past.  I knew this as soon as I read that line;

 “It’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful”

I’m not really ready to let go yet, but I need to.  I am deeply afraid to let go, but I have to.  I don’t want to let go, but I must.  I understand now that this darkness I feel is the cloud of mourning.  I am mourning the loss of my marriage.  The loss of what I thought would be my life.  The loss of a partnership that has sustained me for over a decade.  I am mourning the loss an incredible man who I was sure would walk by my side until the day one of us died.  What if I don’t want it to turn into something else that is beautiful?  What if I am afraid to really know what that would be?

S. wrote me an amazing email this week and closed it with this:

“I miss my wife, her heart, emotions, closeness and affections.  No matter how much I want that back, even though I could still forget everything that has happened and settle comfortably in marriage with you, I know it is no longer possible.  It would be so easy to create distance and barricade myself from my feelings for you,but that’s not what I want.  I love you too much for that.  I will always love you.  So now I want build something new.  I want ‘us’ being together not to have to mean ‘husband, wife, married’ together because that is not the reality anymore.  I want ‘us’ being together to be’deep friendship, strong partnership, happiness that we are in each other’s lives, supportive, fun’.  Even though we can’t see what the future holds beyond that, that unknown path will be so much easier to travel if we are strong and comfortable in our new ‘together’”

And I see now that he is writing of the same thing that that list of instructions write about; letting something beautiful turn into something else that is beautiful.  In the deepest part of my heart I know that this is ultimately possible, because the bond that S. and I share goes so far beyond sexual connection.  I know we can be friends.  I know we can raise our children together.  I know we can find a new equilibrium for our relationship that will still be good and strong and vital.  But we won’t be us – and I don’t know how to deal with that.

I miss what was, and what can never be again.   I sit here and miss it until I feel my heart breaking into pieces for the millionth time this week.  I miss it as I push back the tears that just threatened to fall again, but that I just cannot seem to release.  I miss it as I go through my day feeling like I have completely lost my center.  I miss it when I feel like I have nowhere to turn for that ultimate comfort that always came from him.

Who am I, if not a part of ‘us’?  That might just be the most difficult question of all.

Addendum:

And it happens again, a couple of hours and just a few pages later.  I read:

“…find somebody new to love someday.  Take the time you need to heal, but don’t forget to eventually share your heart with someone.  Don’t make your life a monument to your past”.

And once again, tears start to spill as soon as my heart feels the words “find somebody new to love someday”.  Only three or four tears this time, and a few gasping deep breaths to find composure, but enough for me to fully understand just how close my emotions are to the surface.  They are just simmering there, bubbling away, waiting for someone or something to crack this ridiculous armor of mine enough that they might find release.

Find someone new to love?  How on earth is that possible?  Finding someone new to love means leaving this love behind.  It means releasing him to find his own new love.  It means starting over, from scratch – with a battle-scared heart and a soul weary with recent experience. 

I try to imagine her – this faceless, nameless person who could someday be my love.  I try to imagine me – healed and whole and owning myself on a level that would allow me to offer myself to someone the way you have to in order to truly find love.   I try to imagine myself trusting and believing again.  I know that it is going to take some serious, serious time before I am anywhere near ready for that.  I know that I need to walk alone for a while, find all the pieces of myself and take the time to learn how they all go together. 

Now I just need to reach deep in myself and find the strength and courage to do it.

______________________________________________________________________
*I am still working through not because it isn’t excellent, but because I have to stop every five minutes to write down something particularly wise in the little pink book that goes everywhere with me, or to meditate on a passage that seems to speak to me on a deeper level.  This is one of those books that came to me at the exact time I needed it, and I am savoring every last line.