Go west, young man

Today was the day – after a beautiful month together, Mr. Blue Eyes had to get on his chariot and begin winging his way home to the Southwest. It would be fair to say that a large number of tears were shed this morning.

But that’s not the whole story.  I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna here, but I’m seeing some pretty amazing things as a result of him going.

I miss him with my whole heart.  For the first time in my life, I love someone enough to let it hurt this much.  I care enough to be willing to experience the hurt instead of walking away to avoid it.

There have been many times in my life when I’ve wondered about my capacity for romantic and intimate love.  I thought perhaps I just wasn’t cut out for it.  Now I know that isn’t true.

Another amazing thing – it’s okay for me to be a little crazy with him.  I hear frequently from my teachers this phrase: “Love will bring up everything unlike itself.”

I can now say with absolute certainty: so true.  Loving MBE has brought up so much of my dysfunction: feeling unlovable, feeling unworthy, feeling incapable, blah, blah, blah.  And you know what?  Those feelings have been coming up in the safest and warmest place imaginable – inside his arms.  Because he doesn’t get mad and walk away when the craziness comes up.  He sits and lets me be crazy.  He talks through it with me.  He shows me some of his crazy.  And he loves me anyway.

And one final thought for tonight: over the past couple of days I have experienced my own ability to focus my mind in a completely new way.  Sadness and tears have been building for the past several days.  And every time I let them spill over it’s because my mind was fixating on something specific.  It was usually either imagining the moment that he was going to leave, or imagining coming home to an empty apartment for the first time in a month.  Both events out in the future that had nothing to do with the moment that I was living then.  Every time I let that sadness take over, I was stepping out of the brilliance of being in his present IN THAT MOMENT.

I discovered that at the times when I was able to push those thoughts aside (it literally felt like I was closing a door in my mind and saying, “Not now”) I would be back to having fun and enjoying him in the moment.  Because that’s what was available right then.  In the moments when I couldn’t hold the thoughts at bay, the tears would spill over and the snot would make an unfortunate spectacle of itself.

And you know what the craziest thing of all was?  Neither the moment of his actual leaving nor the moment of coming home to an empty apartment was nearly as awful as I had imagined it would be.  Definitely sad.  But not soul crushing.

**No toothbrushes were harmed in the creation of this post.  And some poetic license was involved because the truth is that MBE actually left a bunch of stuff here…including his toothbrush.  Which means that he’ll be back.  🙂