“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.” ~ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

 

Saying goodbye, letting go…

We let go from so many places, not only our heart.

When we love, we love with the many layers of ourselves. When we let go, it’s from those same layers, the spaces between thoughts, spaces between words, cells.

If it’s taking you some time, know that you are processing in more than one dimension. It’s ok to feel deeply.

 

I’m letting you go in waves spilling onto an absent shore

Just a little here and there

Sometimes a river of grief flooding my heart

Other days softer, almost peaceful

Lying stretched out on the floor

Tears rolling silently, breathlessly, down

 

I’m letting you go from all the places you touched

From deep within my soul

From the far reaches of my mind

Surrendering my body to the pain of release

 

There was one day where I almost had you gone

 

But you snuck back in with a favorite memory

Like the first scent of lilacs on a spring day

And I clung to it because to be honest

Forgetting you would be much worse than this

 

Those memories are sewn with perfect stitches onto the spaces between my cells

 

There was one day there where I had convinced myself that we had done the right thing

There was another day when I was sure we had made a mess of a perfect plan

To love like nothing else mattered

Then there was that day I cursed the whole damn universe

For dangling you before me only to tear you away

 

I’m letting you go

As you float further away

Sometimes looking back

Your heartbreaking smile my solace and my agony

I know that one day you will stop looking back

And I will stop searching for you in my memories

We will both move on and love again

And that hurts most of all

 

Because you came to me on a pleasant wind

That promised more than it could give

 

There was one day there that I didn’t hurt at all

I saw it all so clearly

The coming together, the falling apart

The reasons, our growth, the adventure

And I was almost happy it had ended

Looking forward to not feeling the pull of your interminable tide

 

Almost

 

I’m letting you go

In waves of never-ending love

Into an ocean lost without a shore

@elephant journal