One big goodbye

I've been thinking a lot about something an ex once said. This ex was my longest relationship. 8 years. While I wasn't ready for him, nor did I experience the romantic love needed to keep me there, looking back years later I can appreciate lessons he taught me in a whole new way. With time, distance, and the ability to compare, and contrast, I see that what I took as "too simple" was pretty darn enlightened. 

Our nights, and our Sunday's were filled with conversation of incredible range. Socialism, theatre, the universe, love, the seven wonders of the world, our dog, our childhoods, you name it and we would discuss it at length. Nighttime was often like a slumber party. We'd talk, and talk, subjects bouncing all around. We'd dig in, he'd entertain my curiosity as a willing, and equal participant. Always gentle, always open to philosophizing, he taught me to embrace, and appreciate my sensitivity. He loved my inquisitive nature, my deep thoughts, and big feelings. He allowed me to unabashedly and unapologetically be ME. I wasn't quite aware of it then, because he did it so simply. 

He was there through the first of the two hardest times I've lived through, the first being back in 2012. At this point, I knew I needed to be out of the relationship, but didn't know how to say or do it. Just then, I experience a slew of losses, and stayed put awhile longer.

We talked for months about loss, and goodbye. You'd have to scroll a ways back to find it, but there's a post here where I talk about him saying  life's a series of goodbyes, how "we all meet in the middle of one big long goodbye." I remember when he said this. It seemed uncharacteristicly profound to me at the time, although l think now I wasn't aware of his profundity that probably happened regularly. 

Five years later, I imagine him saying this, in our old kitchen. The way the light filtered in, the sound of his voice. He seemed to be discovering these words and idea in the moment as he spoke. 

This memory makes me sad, but the good kind of sad. A wave of nostalgia hits my heart, but a small smile spreads across my lips. 

His words are  a reminder for me to embrace the goodbyes. To accept, to release, to move forward knowing I will always encounter them. It's all life is...we all just meet in the middle of one big long goodbye. 

So small, and so big, isn't it?

Each goodbye teaching you how you will invest your time from here on out, what kind of people are needed next to sooth your soul, or teach the next lesson. With each goodbye, we are one evolution closer to our greatest wisdom. 

The reminder of our inevitable departure from this earth fills me with love, entire. Even when I think back the moments I thought I would die from heartbreak, I find comfort. It's all IN. It all counts. It all happened. It's all OKAY.

It's just life. This is the way it has to be.

One of my favorite quotes comes to mind, "we are all just walking each other home." We are all teaching each other along this blip of a walk, and I am grateful for each of my radically different gurus along the way. 

I am okay with where I am, presently. I can see it, it's almost tangible. Like a dot moving slowly across a line, approaching a finite end. We are all meant to be EXACTLY where we are in this EXACT moment. 

The dot is seeking...moving toward something brand new, and very much earthed.

I look forward to the next goodbye, and the next, and the next...

🖤