Tragedy has a way of leaving our heart torn and spirit bruised, when it feels like the path to recovery is anything but plain. Even when we’re out of the trenches and the war has already been marginally won, the destruction can still remain heavy on the soul. And when it comes to ending a two-year relationship, it can be particularly trying to comprehend the magnitude and timing of what that is saying goodbye to while also discovering our capacity to love again.
So often relationships participate in a struggle to mirror the best parts of us, constantly playing on a field of hope and doubt - hope for love, hope for lasting connection, hope for resolution, and doubt of capacity, doubt of understanding, and doubt of what it means to walk away. We might feel for a time that the sadness outweighs everything else, until you remember the sound of his laughter, or the special moments shared, and the small whisper in your heart that reminds you of your permission to let go.
The complexity of grief is no page from a picture book; rather its peaks and valleys, highs and lows, are stark landscapes that require navigation without map or torch light. We embark on this journey alone, unable to anticipate where we’ll end up or exactly how long it will take to get there. You may not know why it ended, or how you can recover, but the truth is that grief, like love before it, is destined to come with waves and eddies, currents and depths that test each one’s own depth.
With grief comes the tests of faith, acuity of emotion, and steeling of courage, as you seek again to express a deeper level of trust and purpose in the life that still awaits. But don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to swim against the current; the opposite is true. There’s an art to going with the flow, allowing the twists and turns to land you right where you need to move forward.
Finding our strength through the layers of pain is a process of self-discovery that never fails to touch on a profound level. In the middle of the tumult lies our opportunity to find solace in the parts of us that can never be taken away…while also rediscovering our ability to break the surface and breathe. As our world continues to shift, the important thing is to keep the wonder alive, clinging to hope and deepening the possibilities of what can follow.
If we’re brave enough to search through the sorrows, we can use our loss as a crystal ball of sorts; one that shines a light on our potential for living each day with courage, for giving freely of our empathy and understanding, and for letting go of fear and being ready to love once more. Love doesn’t die easily and doesn’t stay broken long…if we can go through the fire and discover ourselves anew, then heartache can become that which shatters us for a time…but never defines who we really are.
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