Another Layer of Sadness

I don't really want to write this post.  I know it probably sound melodramatic to say that and still write something...  but when things happen in my life that are critical moments, whether good or bad, I can't just gloss over them and pretend they didn't happen. 

I won't mince words and will get straight to the point.  Phil and I broke up over the weekend.  I'm sorry if some people close to me are reading about this for the first in this blog post, but news like this isn't the kind of thing you want to mass email/text out to friend and family.  Especially because right now I don't feel like talking about it or answering a lot of questions.  I just want to put it out there so people know and won't ask the 'so how are you and Phil doing?' question any longer.

I don't have it in me to write an eloquent, poetic post about the end of something that I was really excited about it.  Suffice it to say that between my cross-country move and other difficult things that we are both dealing with, the odds were stacked against us. I know distance can make the heart grow fonder, but it can also make the heart grow distant.  And ultimately being 1,000 miles apart and not knowing when/if you will live in the same city again was just too much for our relationship.  I've been clinging to the sense of normalcy that this relationship represented in the sea of change that has been my life this year, trying to keep this relationship alive, but it got to the point where I had to accept that I was holding onto the ghost of something that no longer existed in its previous form.  There were no unkind words spoken and no anger at the conclusion of our relationship, there was just an acknowledgement that what we have couldn't withstand living so far apart. 

All of this just feels like I am peeling back another layer of sadness in the onion of life.  While I realize that I have much to be thankful for and life could be so much worse, I am hoping this is the last disappointment I'll have to face for awhile because I have kind of had it with facing challenges lately.  Add in the fact that I'll weather this break-up in an area where I am lacking in the friend department, and the fact that I can't use my drug of choice, running, since I'm still recovering from my stress fracture, and well, it's just makes it all a little bit more difficult.

But I just keep telling myself that this, too, shall pass.  And I know it will. I'm going to try to stay as busy as possible to keep the sadness and tears (mostly) at bay.  And for now, I'm reflecting on this passage from Mary Anne Radmacher's book, Lean Forward into Your Life.

Growth and maturity exist largely in knowing when it is time to walk. Knowing when to leave.  There is a peculiar grace in knowing when it is time to say good-bye to a thing, a person, a system, a construct, a belief.

I often hear people speak of relationships at their conclusion as "failed."  Simply because a thing does not last until its anticipated conclusion, that does not make it a failure.  If a flower is crushed while still in bloom, it is not a failed flower. When a younger life is slashed off the planet by a knife or bullet, it doesn't mean that that life failed in its presence on the planet.  It is indeed a loss to those who remain, but it is not failure.  A relationship must be allowed its cycle and time.  Not all comings together are forever even though we bind them to that in our societal vocabulary.  The human being whose life is now lived far from my life and whose name is not a part of my name has his own story. And his parting was less a failure than a learning.

This will be a one post kind of week for me as I just don't feel like writing right now.  Luckily I have a business trip to Houston this week and a fun weekend trip to visit John and his family in Raleigh which will help on the keeping busy/distracted front.