I spent the better part of a rainy Sunday morning writing. I had just returned (the night before) from a brief trip to the east coast to visit friends and family for the holidays. In my musings and in my head, I was still caught somewhere between reverie for the past and optimism for the future. When the rain cleared, I went to the farmers market where I bought fresh bread, vegetables, and cara cara oranges. I wrote some more and then walked along the waterfront. There, I sat and watched the people on the beach. Dogs ran wild and happy. A young couple had their photos taken to announce her pregnancy. People took selfies with the water and bridge as their backdrop. There was a faint rainbow across the Bay and the sun hit the bridge in a way that made its orange towers glow. I’ve been here a year and I still take pictures of the bridge. There was a time when I thought beauty and intensity (at least in relationships) faded or would prove to be unsustainable… but I still find wonder and joy in the things I see every day. Only when we stop paying attention does wonder fade.
Throughout the day, I continued to putter around with what I was writing. I couldn’t get the sentiment right. I had been thinking about the New Year. I had been thinking about starting over on the dating apps, and maybe starting over on this silly blog thingy. I had been thinking about renewing my commitment to myself and writing and poetry. Almost every time I think about hitting the reset button on some part of my life, almost every time I think about what I want the next chapter to look like, I go back to a time when I had a more traditionally defined sense of home. I go back to a time when I was in a committed relationship that seemed like it had a lot of promise and enough fuel to burn for decades. I go back to 2018/2019 when I had fallen in love and gotten engaged.
Despite not being able to get the sentiment right, despite the writing and re-writing, I was feeling light- and full-hearted. I was feeling a sense of validation and peace. It’s hard to describe, but there’s a joy in being open to the world and being at peace with what has passed and what comes next.
For years, revisiting that relationship usually induced feelings of shame. I’d feel shame for having fond memories, or for trying as hard as I did, or for thinking we had what it took, or for holding on as long and as tightly as I did. I’d feel shame for still wanting much of what I experienced in that relationship – as though wanting what we had was somehow akin to not letting go. I’d feel shame for not having moved on the way society says we should move on – which usually means moving on with a cold and sober, almost demonizing rejection of what was. I prefer acceptance to rejection. I prefer warmth to coldness. And as a closet romantic, I prefer the inebriation of love to the sobriety of practicality. I’d rather move on slowly and feel the entire range of emotions than rebound or lie to myself so as to “get over it.”
I’ve written about this dozens of times. It’s been a long and slow process with many re-evaluations and many re-visitations. Where the validation, the peace, the full- and light-heartedness came in was in realizing that I have, for the most part, achieved the type of moving on that I wanted to achieve: a non-directional open heart without hope or expectation. What this looks like in practical terms is that I’ll ask myself, “what am I looking for?” I’ll answer with, “I’d like to feel the way I felt back then. I’d like the optimism and laughter that we had.” I’ll begin to probe what made “back then” special or what made this person, or us, special. I’ll shrug and say I don’t know, it just was, they just were – we clicked.
That, of course, is the challenging part. I’ve written about this too. For me, moving on has meant always seeing her as the person I thought I knew, and remembering fondly the time we had together. It’s hard to explain that I’d welcome the chance to reconnect and am, at the same time, ambivalent towards it. However razor thin the nuances are, it’s the difference between being open to something and desiring something. Though with only a slight edge, she is on equal footing with anyone new that I would meet (that slight edge being that we have history, we did a lot of work as a couple and we were comfortable with each other). For years, honoring the commitment I made to her, to me, and to us (because it was an honest commitment) has meant holding the slightly detached attitude that says she’d still be my top choice until she’s no longer my top choice… until I encounter someone who has a similar wow factor and equal or greater potential. What was true then remains true today – what worked then would probably work today.
That’s not to say that I haven’t changed. In some respects, it’s the changes I’ve made that have given me a different perspective and a sense of freedom from the past. Working to become the person I wanted to find (or thought I found) has relieved the pressure and urgency of finding someone new. Living the life I thought we would live has reinforced the view that being with this person was a deliberate and mindful choice, but not a necessity. I always thought my life was better with her in it, but I’ve spent years building a life that’s pretty damn good on its own. What all of this looks like in my daily thinking is that on a day like today, New Year’s Eve, I could still envision us having a good time together… or when a band that we both liked comes to town, I could see us going together. I suspect that she feels very differently – that such things are not in the realm of possibility and are beyond her imagination. And I think that’s the locus of the full-hearted validation I’ve been feeling – knowing that I can take it or leave it, knowing that I don’t have to be closed off or that in leaving myself open, I’m neither in harm’s way nor am I closing myself off to other possibilities… validation in knowing that I don’t harbor bitterness or resentment. All of this feels liberating. All of this feel matter of fact. Which is kinda nice.
There was a time when I was uncomfortable with my feelings towards this person. There was confusion, there was hurt, there was loss and betrayal, and there was still this overwhelming feeling of love and longing. I think what I felt then was a sense of love driven by fear, driven by holding on, driven by the sting of rejection, driven by not being able or willing to accept that it wasn’t reciprocated or that things had come to an end. What I feel now is different. It’s still a form of love, but it’s not driven by anything other than acceptance – acceptance that what I felt was true, acceptance that she chose differently, acceptance that I have no idea what’s around the next corner – and that not only am I open to what comes next, but that I might even know how to like it. Because I’ve learned to like a lot of things.