Seasons

This is a story of heartbreak and redemption.

At least, one of them…

I thought I had met my person. 

The one I would build a life with. The one that felt limitless in its potential. The one that would finally fill the hole in my heart - the one I’ve had most of my life.

It felt like a beautiful dream, especially after going through a divorce years ago that left me feeling horribly isolated while learning how to be a single parent. 

This person was a big deal.

It was the first time that life felt so insanely delicious. It was juicy AF. It both terrified me and exhilarated me. Some days I felt like I might explode with happiness, while other days I was paralyzed by anxiety because it scared me to care for someone this much. 

It felt too good to be true.

And it was.

Not because anything bad happened. But because we wanted different things from life in that moment. 

For a while, everything felt so aligned. It felt so close to being everything I had dreamed of and more. But it was missing a crucial component: alignment in what we wanted the relationship to be.

If I learned anything from my marriage, it was that without a solid foundation and a deep emotional connection, nothing else could be built. And that was an extremely painful lesson.

In this new relationship, I felt amazed as we started to build a solid foundation, without even trying. It was effortless. But even with that, we hit a point where we could no longer move forward, because that would mean one of us compromising our values and needs for the other. It wasn’t fair to either of us.

And so, I left. 

I left a relationship with a person that made me experience life in a way I never had before. A person that I loved deeply, because they lit my soul on fire and showed me how magical life could be. A person that came into my life to show me what love could be.

To leave it behind felt like death.

It hurt more than anything I had felt in my life. This was unbelievable to me, considering I’ve lost people I loved to physical death. Witnessed people I loved lose people they loved. Moved to a new city and started over from scratch, over and over and over.

I’ve said goodbye so many times, in so many ways.

I’m familiar with pain. But I had never felt this kind of pain.

It left me bare and exposed, staring in the mirror. Looking at myself, unable to hide from the truths staring back at me.

The reflection was hard to look at. It pained me, but I couldn’t look away.

This entire year has been an achey blur, moving through life feeling like a shell of who I was, trying not to drown in the endless sadness I felt. It sunk me to the deepest depths of darkness.

This relationship woke me up to many truths about myself. One of them being how my childhood wounds played out in my romantic relationships. I knew that this would be the last time I operated with an outdated program; one based on my challenging relationship with my mom. 

One where I chose an emotionally unavailable person because I believed I needed to work to be loved. I needed to somehow prove that I was worthy of love. One where I chased a connection that always kept me at a distance, unable to fully meet each other.

Since then, I’ve been rebuilding my life as an entirely new person. The pain of that loss stripped me down and burned away so many false beliefs I’ve been holding onto about myself. It burned away parts of me that were untrue.

It left me incredibly raw and vulnerable. The pain was unbearable, and there was nothing I could do about it except allow it to overtake me. Embrace it. Let it take me to the darkest corners of my heart and soul. 

I let it guide me through a dark place, with faith and trust that I would make it through, to a brighter, more beautiful place.

And it has. I see now that what I perceived to be pain, was also love. It was love, leading me to see myself with more clarity. It was love, giving me an opportunity to show up in this world as a truer, more authentic version of myself.

This kind of pain is exquisite. A kind of pain only made possible by the delicious joy and pleasure that came before it.

So, you see, you cannot have the pleasure without the pain. The light without the dark. The new life without the death. 

As summer comes to an end and I feel the subtle changes around me, I feel this season of my life coming to end.

The days are brighter. I can feel the magic sparking again. I feel more peace and calm then sadness and heartache. The space in my heart is now filled with tinder pieces of who I used to be, creating the perfect place for a big, roaring fire to ignite within me.

I know the grief will still hit me at times, but it’s no longer at the forefront of my experience. I’m not drowning in sorrow anymore.

The seasons are changing, within me and around me. I am so grateful for this season of my life, for it has taught me so many valuable lessons.

I realized that I had never loved someone so deeply before - and this was a direct reflection of how deeply I am able to love myself. This in itself is such an important realization for me.

I have found deeper meaning in everything.

More strength.

More power.

More truth.

All thanks to love.

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3