It’s inevitable that one of you at some point will move on. Start a new chapter in the book of your life that confirms one last time that what once was is now in the past. Chapters including the words I and Me, more so than We and Us.
Most people, I’d imagine, find this hard. Especially confusing if you left each other on good terms. It can almost feel like you’re leaving all over again. This time for good, it’s final. You are no longer that person to each other. That slot has now been taken over by someone else. And that needs and deserves a bit of time to sink in. Because, unjustified as it may seem, it’s painful to both of you.
I’ve been pushing away that feeling for a little while now. Since meeting my new boyfriend I’ve been filled with love and happiness yet at the same time a heavy sadness manifesting itself in my entire body. I can feel it almost every day. Every time I think about it I’m struck with guilt. Grief. Uncertainty as to whether it’s the right time/ is it too soon? How openly should I do this? Am I ready? Have I moved on sufficiently? And will I be able to survive hurting someone again if it doesn’t work out? All fairly normal concerns I’d imagine. But Oh, so heavy.
Thing is, I’m really happy. But the wish for him to be as happy as I am.., I don’t know how to express just how big it is. It feels like a need, almost. For me to be able to fully enjoy my happiness, I need him to be as well. Once I start thinking about it the familiar welling of tears from a place so deep inside causing me to feel like I can’t breathe without sounding like I’m going through labour, it hurts too much. And I stand without tools to cope.
I’m not trying to victimize anyone. Him, nor myself. And this is important. But I’m gonna take a moment to address how complicated I’m finding love is. Love is the most natural feeling in the world right? The very reason we exist. To love, and to find love. To know true compassion, towards ourselves and others -it’s the whole point isn’t it?? When you find that, where you truly wish someone the best, when experiencing that someone else’s needs suddenly become your own.. That honest love. Selfless and pure.
That… If that’s not the prize.., the goal and absolute point of it all, this hard work, the loss and pain, then I don’t know what is.
Putting it like that, we can understand the magnitude of failing. Right?? Of losing it. Through endings; be that death or just separating, one way or the other. It must be in our nature to loose something within ourselves when it happens. Feels unnatural, hurting someone you only wish to make happy. It’s brutal! putting it like that?? I think so. Feels wrong and not good at all.
Yet.. love is fickle. It’s meant to adapt. To change. Refocus and reboot.
As we cannot bring back the loved ones who no longer is, we cannot keep nurturing something that will not grow. So we have to at some point dig it up in order to plant new seeds. And the potential to love.., your soil, which holds the amazing power to nurture and grow beautiful new things didn’t change or disappear.
As he so lovingly, with his head held high, let me go, I too must put my feelings aside and give his soil room to grow new things. Because it can’t when I’m in the way. And I think I get that now.
So this is my (fully aware of my slight cowardliness putting it out on this platform) attempt to come to terms with it all. And saying it. To myself and the universe. Respectfully. Because I know you’re doing well (I have spies all over town baby). With an honest wish I could do more, but an acknowledgment that it is not my place.
Gikk ut av et forhold ganske nylig. Kjærligheten tok slutt for andre part. Kjærlighet sorgen kommer snikende til tider. Værste er at jeg er usikker på om jeg skal ringe for å ha kontakt. Vi er kollega og verneombud. Vi må gå på kurser ilag når corvid-19 fordufter. Men siden hun slo opp via en telefon samtale og vi har ikke snakket på fire uker, syntes jeg hun burde ringe. Men kommer hun egentlig til å gjøre det? Vi var ikke bare kjærester men gode venner og kollega. Nå sitter jeg her og aner ingenting av hva som skjer i livet hennes. Jeg sitter med blandet følelser om hvordan jeg skal håndtere situasjonen. Hva tror du Viktoria. Skal jeg ringe og si at jeg ønsker å opprettholde god kjemi eller vente og håpet på at hun ringer og sier at hun ikke vil miste kontakten. Jeg møtte henne i arbeidstid for litt siden. Jeg var sikker på at jeg kunne håndtere det profesjonelt men når jeg så henne. Merket jeg, dette er lettere sagt en gjort. Dette er bare noen uker siden så kanskje jeg skal la det ligge, til jeg klarer å gå videre uten henne i tankene mine. Det er vanskelig dette med «kjærlighet
Så vanskelig!!
Om det var hun som gikk, ser jeg ikke at det kan være noe annet enn fint for henne å få en bekreftelse fra deg på at du ikke har noen hard feelings og kunne tenke deg å ha en vennlig tone og moderat kontakt. Godt mulig hun ikke vil kontakte deg/oppsøke deg pga dårlig samvittighet..
( Litt drit av henne å gjøre det over tlf, da? :/ )
Jeg sier at det som er sagt angrer man mindre på enn det som ikke ble sagt!
Følte meg mye bedre etter telefonsamtalen! Nå er vi bare gode venner og kollega som bare småprater litt på Snapchat. Å angre mer på hva som ikke blir sagt enn hva Som kunne blitt sagt. Et godt tips! Kommer selvfølgelig an på situasjonen da 😅
Så fantastisk! 😀
…have i send this before ? 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA4qIuqiS0Q
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Very nice video. Thank you!
you’re welcome…the most famous student of lacan is always worth a look 😉
… that’s also the solution for the “bed” picture puzzle, right, …hard working ?! 😉
I’ve been with the same women now for 47 years, no regrets, good and bad times. I wouldn’t know where to start if I had to start dating again these days. Sounds funny to me “start dating”, not that I’d want that to happen. Just looking around at what the younger generations have to put up with these days, glad I’m off the market and never likely to be so again. It all seemed so simple way back in the day. Wishing you all the best in your quest.
Wow Viktoria.
Maybe, like many of us you do not write to try and achieve literary excellence, but to convey and share your deepest feelings.
I think this is possibly one of the most powerful pieces you have written to date. What is more, in my opinion (not that that is relevant), it is truly excellent.
Not so much the lobbing of a stone into a pond and causing a few ripples but pushing a boulder from a mountain top into a fjord and causing a tidal wave!
They say ‘child is father of the man’ or in these more P.C. times The Child is the Parent of the (Wo)Man, perhaps.
Would that be a ‘Tool’ you could wield to ‘work’ shape from your base materials?
What is this ‘Love’ thing that everybody keeps talking about?
What purpose does it serve?
Does it serve more than one purpose?
How much of it do we have or can we receive?
If we give more of it to one person, does it mean that everybody else gets less?
How do we get more of it if we want it?
What happens to it in the end?
Such innocent, childish questions……….
By a forest, by a road, by a lay-by, by a gun-metal grey fjord stood a Mountain Ash (Rowan Tree) and it’s beauteous form still plays upon my ‘inner eye’ with it’s cheerfully hot, bright, red berries, shining out against the cold, dull waters and wild rocky backdrop of the fjord below; it’s nearly forty years since I saw it.
And I wonder, was this the most beautiful Mountain Ash in Southern Norway?
(Allegory (though a true experience also)).
Peter.
(I wonder what the Rowan thought of me? Probably couldn’t make up it’s mind as I kept my bright red berries well hidden). 😉
‘Relationships – The Yoga of the West’. Richard Alpert.
I was doing research on mental health and I ended up discovering your blog.
You have a brave heart.
Your parents couldn’t even have chosen a better name for you.
I wish you luck and serenity in whatever you do.
This made my morning <3
This made much sense to me idk if it’s truly relatable but I also find survivors guilt daily. Where I want everyone to be happy so I can be happy truly I think Aurora’s music does that for me. I hope one day we can find answers together 😉 🏔
Although I know you never intended to write to me in particular, I find it almost impossible not to comment. I could leave my thoughts to the wind, or perhaps have written a reply to you in person, I don’t know, this just feels right.
Although I find you unique and formidable as a human and woman, you can and will be replaced as a wife and companion. However, that part of me that is you in my soul will always be there as a symbiosis of respect, love, gratefulness and part grief for many reasons.
You taught me how to cope with grief, and what I can only describe as a language of love – I will be fine (better) thanks to you.
We both deserve respect for going through what we did, and still have nothing but the best of wishes for one another. You were my brother in arms, and I was yours – so even though you feel like you left me, you never really did. Whether I ever see you again or not, I’m sure that the day I die, I will think of you – With only the best of thoughts or perhaps emotions is a better word.
If I see you on the street, I will smile at you. You don’t need to come over for smalltalk, as we both know we want to say so much more.
I do miss you, not as a wife, but as that part of me that only you understand and know, and perhaps you are right, this is probably for the best – for now anyway.
V
Sobbing!!!
You…
Forever grateful to you. This is the best thing I’ve read possibly in my whole life. Thank you. And you’re welcome. We did well.
x
Beautiful meditation on what love is. I am glad that you have found new love! And these feelings… feelings of guilt are normal. It’s an indication that we have yet to learn something…
I have learned that love… a truly great love pains us so much because we really felt it and with its absence, we feel like we are nothing but because of this very thing that left us, we have known the power of our own true strength as well because we can move on. We can love again and learn that love is unconditional. What is unconditional? It just simply means we love with no conditions. When we experience that true, selfless, unconditional love, we just love that person for who he is. It doesn’t matter what he does, whether he returns the love, whether he becomes a better person or not. But we love him/her for who he/she is.
I am also reminded of Kahlil Gibran’s quotes on love in The Prophet. I hope it can also brighten your day somehow.
“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth……
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.”
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
I do hope that you do feel better Viktoria! <3
Worthy text. Verdig. 👍
The pain of lost love never truly goes away. But the pain becomes less sharp with time. More important is to realize that this person is not the long term love you are looking for, treasure the experience and move on until you do find your life partner. Peace.