I know that I hold on because I am afraid of nothing taking your place. I am sure the emptiness I feel at the mere notion of this pattern changing, or being rid of it altogether, stems from the understanding I have that this time, this relationship, was one of the most sacred and important of my entire life. I am just not sure how to let it go, I am not sure who I am without this story… I am not sure, when it comes down to it, who I am apart from you – which reads totally strangely because I have not been paired to you in nearly 14 years. Yet. Here I sit, my heart has to cope with the truth of it all, and I am not looking forward to the parts that come next… The part where I change and this indeed becomes the story I used to know, history, and no longer sewn into the fabric of my everyday thoughts and emotions.

I know that, I have known for some time, that I need to sever this bond, because it hurts me to still love you, and I am quite ashamed at the truth that I have carried you with me, fighting in vain against all present truths, to keep you locked safe within, although I also understood that I have no right, and it benefits nobody whom knows me now to do so. It hurts me that they are the driving force behind this breaking bond, because they deserve so much more from me than living in discontent and sadness over a man I lost before my children were even a thought on my mind – before I ever met my husband and became his partner. They deserve the person I signed on to be when I earned the title Mother, when I chose the title Wife. They deserve that I am whole, without this longing, without this pain that I have nursed like a wound that just will not heal. They deserve – all of me…

But I have never been able to give all of that, because the sad truth is that I made sure nobody else could have that; I gave myself that way one time, and I vowed when we parted, I vowed to myself when I left, that no other person would ever love me that way again, and I would never give of myself – my heart, my mind, my body, and my soul – to another person the way that I gave myself to you.

They deserve more from me.

That leaves me here, where I am today – doing what I am doing today. I flew to Central America, to a peninsula in Costa Rica overlooking the ocean. I chose to embark on the journey of meeting myself in an entirely new modality – blasting off into the cosmos to understand why I have held on so long, why I have loved you every day of every month of every year since last you even held my hand. I have had to push way past my comfort zone and put trust in a process. The process of removing the layers, one by one, so that I arrive to the center: Why do I hold on to you, when all it does is hurt me?

What is love, then, if all these years I called this love? What is fate then, if all these years I thought you are it for me? What is sadness, if the greatest sadness I have known in my life is not the death of my own mother, but the pain of losing you? What is grief, if I have never fully grieved the loss of this relationship because I have never really allowed myself to believe that it is, indeed, dead? What is happiness, if what I tell myself in this narrative is that I was happiest when I was with you?

I have nailed myself to this story, and my flesh is rotting where the pierced flesh waits for healing. I am rotting from the inside out (you used to laugh at that joke, remember? I never forgot a moment we shared…) and I could choose to stop the pain, but I cannot bring myself to tear my own skin and sinew apart because I do not know who I will become once the healing begins, and once it is complete? Well, that is the biggest fear of all – because that will mean I no longer even need this story at all.

Tonight, ceremony One. Tonight, I have no expectations, but I come with a heavy heart, and I come knowing something is waiting for me – and I have to meet it halfway… Whatever that may be, whatever I face, I believe eventually the answers will come, in some way, even if it takes a while to fully understand it and integrate the things I am taught.

What I want as I step through the door of the Maloca, what I yearn for as I am presented with this immense opportunity, and I say to her “come”, and she comes, is to have peace – but I am heavy now, and the tears have already begun, because I desperately face a dichotomy here: To let go, but then to hold on is all I’ve known. Can I do this? Can I have the letting go when I have to die first, to everything I’ve purposefully held for so long? It pains me in a manner, with a depth, I cannot ever fully describe to lose this.

If tonight I do not encounter the things I want to understand, if it indeed goes some way I never anticipated, in a direction I could not have seen coming, then I will be grateful. I am grateful, even in my sadness, because at least I am allowing myself to be fully present in this feeling. In the fear, in the unknown, in the sadness, and with my heavy heart. At least I Am Showing Up, and I know now that is what I must do. That is ALL I can do. If I face the truths that show me what I want to understand, regarding specifically you, then I will consider that to be an answered prayer – but one I still must face with great, tremendous pain – an answered prayer that will be painful, as the healing work begins, and my flesh finally starts coming back together after only knowing years suffering because I could not do this work alone.

I came here to know peace, to know love apart from you, and I came here to finally untether my soul from yours, because this life is not meant to be wasted. You, throughout all of these lost years, have said only two sentences with any meaning to me, and alas, this is probably all I will ever get…

Thank you for making our story eternal. And thank you for the memories.

Indeed.

It is such a blessing to even have that, my sweet Dylan. It is such a gift you gave me, and I sense your trembling fingers and the anticipation when you did that, but it left me yearning for more. For all. For everything you were for me, with me, and for yourself. It left me wanting, needing – yet that was it. All I would ever receive from you again, and now my hope is all but gone that you will ever come back.

If this is what our love amounts to for you, that should show me a great deal – what I am holding onto is long just a memory, long since the furthest thing from present, and therefore I have held our torch alone, and I no longer have the strength to keep it lit. My heart is tired, and my soul is urging me, more each passing moment it seems, to embark upon a new chapter…

I never thought I would get here, and I still beg in the night, through my tears when I cry alone, for you to stop me, tell me I was right all along, and remind me what it is I’ve kept this for, for all these years. What good is that, though, when I know you will not – you never have, and so to die to this love is all I can do now.

I am as ready I think as I can ever be, for a journey so beautifully unknown. I am hurting, and maybe that will still go on for a while, but if anything – if anything at all, I know it means I loved well, and it was worth it. You and me, we were worth it, but it is time. For me to let my own life move forward. Come what may, I have to move forward. My vulnerability, my honesty intact – perhaps more so than ever. Let the world know I loved you, and love you still, but I am ready – to be fully present, to heal, and to live the life I was meant to live, one difficult and heavy moment at a time. Eventually it will not be so hard, but I am not there yet, and I know that is okay. Letting go was never meant to be easy… Losing great love was never supposed to be easy, and so I fought it. But what good is that when you are never coming back? What good is that, when they need me, and I need to learn to be here – now. I cannot be tied to this forever or my dear it will literally kill me, and I will not leave my children the way my mother left me. I cannot. So, here I go – into the beautiful unknown.