(warning: raw emotional content ahead)
Why?
If we know that something isn’t quite working out, why do we keep at it, day after day, month after month, year after year, until finally something gives (again) and we just can’t take it anymore?
Why do we ignore the warning signs in a relationship? We postpone the inevitable, tell ourselves there is a way to make it work, that these basic differences can be fixed. We pretend everything is OK and lose ourselves in day-to-day routine and comfort, thus ensuring that when the paths do finally diverge (and they will), things are so complicated, so intertwined, with so much time and emotion and energy invested, that the reality of parting seems insurmountable, impossible.
Why do we knowingly do this to ourselves? And it is knowingly. As much as we hide from it and push it down, the truth is always there, waiting for us.
These are rhetorical questions, really. The short answer to all of them is, you guessed it, fear. There are seemingly endless things to fear in letting go of a relationship: fear of being alone, fear of emotional pain, fear of hurting someone we care for deeply, fear of losing something that we can never get back, fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of the unknown…what the hell am I supposed to do with myself after 7 and a half years of being with the same person?
So, even in the face of it, when it is undeniably time to make the change, we struggle and grasp for reasons why it could work, concessions we could make, changes that could occur that would make everything OK. For brief, ignorant moments, small feelings of relief and familiar comfort seep in, before being swallowed up by the twisting knot in our stomach and replaced by the dull ache of acceptance. Over and over this circle of dim false hope followed certain grief and despair repeats itself, like waves crashing into the sand.
But this is only one side of the story, one chapter. And while this very real, very powerful and very necessary chapter is being written down, scratched out, and rewritten, another story is simultaneously beginning to unfold. This story tells of freedom, excitement, and joy. It describes following dreams, bliss, and doing what we love no matter what. It details the refinement of our purpose, and the shedding of old, outdated thought patterns. It tells of this incredible gift that we call life.
