The End of an Era

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pull to write an article for this site. I have been going through unimaginable changes in my life and have had no way to describe it let alone share it with everyone.  As many of you know, several months ago, Stane (Steve/Zane) and I agreed to separate.  After 21 years of growing together, we agreed we are both ready to let go and let gravity pull us where it will…which apparently is away from each other. At the same time, my youngest just graduated from high school, as salutatorian, with several scholarships to her chosen art school. She is choosing her dorm as we speak.  Similarly, my son has decided to move further out into the world, into an independent living program that will help him practice cultivating safety for himself in the world. I know he’s ready and am certain it will be beneficial in every way imaginable. Finally, I have completed my residency hours and have only to pass the EPPP and Jurisprudence exams.  I am scheduled to take the EPPP July 25^th.  I’m trying my best to study when my brain can retain the information. I’m doing better than I imagined I would be.  I didn’t even mention the myriad of other issues that I’m navigating, like that my trusty car that has gotten me everywhere for the last 3 years without incident, is completely immobile.  There’s much more, but to list it all would feel like me trying to be a victim – and right now, I’m not in the mood to bear that burden. Either me or Stane (or both of us) will tell the story someday.  If I were to write it all down right now, I think the rest of my hair would turn grey overnight and I would just collapse, giving up. No, I’ll wait until those words find me.

Let me just say that calling this transition difficult feels like such a minimization at this point. In some ways this experience feels completely hopeless, while simultaneously feeling completely full of hope. Like I’ve said many times before, I feel like Schrödinger’s Cat. Just waiting to find out if I’m dead or alive. The truth, I have discovered, is both are always true. We are living and dying every second of every day.  It’s called change.  Every moment a living organism that lives in/on/around your body is either being created or destroyed. It’s why we eat – so we can keep doing it – moving energy through a body – making it conscious. I have a theory that this process is why we hold onto things so tightly; that at some fundamental level our brain knows that everything is impermanent. Since our brain can make up all kinds of stories to distract us, we forget this, deliberately, because who wants to think about death? So, we hold on and forget about gravity. I feel like there’s not just physical gravity, that there’s also social, emotional, mental, and soul gravity as well. I suspect it happens when we are pulled towards people that will ultimately fulfill us at our core, fundamental, or elemental self. I really believe that there are those who grow with us, and those who heal with us; and there’s a time for each of them at every level of self. That’s why, I suspect, people come in and out of our lives…because we’re constantly changing, living, and dying in all sorts of ways.

Now that change has made its appearance in my life so drastically, I’ve come to terms with it. On some level, Stane and I were/are looking for our people because we’re ready for them.  He’s known who his person is for a long time; I’m still looking or was looking, half-heatedly, because of my suspended belief that I wasn’t supposed to “get over” the end of my marriage so quickly. The reality is that I’ve had years to come to terms with this separation. So yes, I started online dating and “half-heartedly” (again like the cat) looking for my person. I believe I have found him, already. Like magic, he appeared. At first, I began online dating just to see the possibilities, and although I had met several interesting people that pulled me to an extent, even went on a real date for the first time, I didn’t imagine I would find “my person”. I signed up on several dating sites randomly and chaotically, then there he was. I had my doubts because he’s a “too good to be true” kind of experience for me.  I’ve come to believe that saying “trust is not a myth” opened me up to being tested by the universe. My connection is one of those moments. The outcome is still yet to be determined.

Whatever happens, I trust that I will be okay and that I will have grown as a person having experienced these moments. At the very least, I am learning a lot about myself, my preferences, and what matters to me at my core. If he isn’t my person, then my person is out there somewhere, and I won’t give up until I find him. It isn’t that I “need a person” to feel alive or be complete.  I am complete and alive, (or dead/alive like the cat), on my own. I know who I am. It’s that my heart, at its core, desires to be with someone who can reflect me and see me as I am. That, when I have someone to share my joy with, it is amplified. When I share my burden with him, it is lighter. I want to spend my time with someone who can create a symbiotic connection with me and enjoy everything that life has to offer us. It’s joys and its burdens. In that respect, this whole experience is filled with hope. When we’re both ready, he will appear. He has to cross the Pacific Ocean first (logistics!). I’m just sayin’, quite certain that this one is my person.