"I Don't Shine If You Don't Shine"

So, I'm sure you've been here before.  We all have to let go of things . . . we let go of little things on a daily basis.  A tank of gas here.  A cigarette there.  A smile at a stranger.  We lose things every day.  Our keys.  Our wallet.  Our minds.  Then there are the bigger things we lose.  A family member.  A pet.  A lover.  Our heart.  And damn, how the big ones just take your breath away . . .This is what makes us human.  It forces us to grow.  I suppose this pain, this loss, somehow reminds us that we are alive.

Tonight, my lovely blog readers, my heart is breaking--but, surprisingly, it is a good break.  A "grown up" break.  I healthy one, even.  An I'm-not-going-to-drink-myself-silly silent hurt.  I'm happy to report that I'm dealing with this heartache like a woman--even if I feel all dramatic and high school about it right now . . .

Someone whom I love very much is leaving my life and I'm grieving--in my own way.  I suppose that way is writing about it.

We met each other at very difficult times in our lives.  We were both drinking heavily to disguise some hidden pain deep inside.  Both searching for someone to take away that pain.  But what we found in each other, in shining glimpses, I still believe was love.  The love was there, but also overwhelming incompatibility.  God, to say it that way sounds so clinical.  Like we took some Match.com multiple choice test and failed--but it's true.  We drove each other crazy and neither one of us could put our finger on exactly what it was or how to fix it.

In our growing apart over the past year, we also learned how to love ourselves.  I went out and got a great job and began writing, painting, and reading daily again.  He practiced his guitar all the time, started a blues band, and got to work on his motorcycle collection.  I think all the exhausting energy we used up on each other needed somewhere to go and so it went right back into what we'd always done best--creating.  Anyway,  over the year we'd still reconnect, but we'd just start our old habits and end up right back in crazy town--both still too stubborn to make it work.

Then he told me he was moving back home to the East coast and I was so angry.  I thought he was giving up and running away.  And like always, I said things that I didn't mean and that I regret (yet another lesson to be learned).  Then I was so sad, so, so overwhelmingly sad and still in shock.  But then the shock wore off and I realized that, even though it hurt so much (breathtakingly) that this was really what was best--for both of us.  For him, because he was so far away from his family.  I couldn't imagine being so far away from my family. And for me, because I really needed to move on emotionally.

This person has a such a good heart and a genuinely beautiful soul and even though we put each other through hell, I am still so blessed to have had him in my life.  So, as we all do at one point in our lives,  I was in love and then I lost that love.  But now that I think of it, I didn't lose that love at all--I gained so much from loving him.  So much that I will never lose.  It's all there in my heart.  I am reminded of something we both kept saying to each other, and that was "I just want you to be happy".  And isn't that the best kind of love there is?

"She said I don't mind if you don't mind

'cause I don't shine if you don't shine." 

--"Read My Mind", The Killers

Keep on Shining and, as always, thanks for reading,

Nik