for g.

Hi Trish,

Any love advice? You and B seem to have it so figured out. It's beautiful, following your story... I was with someone for two years...she was everything to me..I still can't remember how it happened, or what exactly was said... I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I'm beginning to see that I pushed her away. I saw my whole life with her when we were together. All of it, beginning to end. I don't know if that's normal, or typical- I'm not really a person that gets into many frivolous relationships. I just can't seem to forget her. From one caring person to another, how do I get through this? Have you been there yourself?

-g


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Hi G,

Oh, yes. I have been there.

Thank you so much for asking this question. I could write a novel on the layers within your words, but will do my best to summarize key learnings by saying this:

I think we have to shut down the replay. We have to learn to turn off the mental projector and put down those editing pens meant for circling, highlighting and crossing out. We have to give ourselves permission to stop analyzing every move that we made while wondering how it could have all ended differently if we’d only gone left, instead of right.

I have this mental image of a few of my clients and so very many of my friends wearing whistles around their necks and collegiate logos on their hats while logging in late night hours in their emotional archive rooms, watching each conversation or argument or move like a football coach studies each play post-game. We could have won, if only that’d one instance had gone differently...

When we know better, we do better, absolutely. Becoming curious about our behaviors -- particularly those we aren’t proud of, most often sparked by fear and un-embraced vulnerability -- and the root cause of them helps us to change our patterns in positive ways.

But I have to question the value in painstakingly re-playing old relationships of any kind (romantic, familial, professional) . Could it be that maybe, just maybe, you were doing the best you could with the tools you had in those times? And to go even one, generous, step further; that maybe the other person was, too? Even if that best seems like an absolute punch-to-the-gut shitstorm of regret?

I also want to be totally transparent about the truth of how B & I live as partners: I promise you, we do not have it all figured out. That’s not a goal post I’m willing to build for us and I am certainly no expert on what that would, or should even look like.

I do know, however, that it truly takes both of us. Patience. Forgiveness. Remembering to make generous assumptions of the other based on all of the reasons why we love them, trust them, and feel gratitude for them. It takes a lot of play, intimacy and adventuring. Hard questions, vulnerable answers, and being curious about our shared and separate lives as they unfold within us, and before us.

We do not have a single flawless, undefeated season under our belts. But we have a hell of a lot of epic wins, memorable highlights, half time pep talks and meaningful camaraderie to be proud of. He continues to be my MVP. I still look darn cute as his varsity cheerleader (if I do say so myself).

And, as I recently told a close friend, I sure do give us extra points for continuously trying (and fumbling!) with flare.

I don’t want it to come off as though I’m telling you to forget about your once love. Perhaps there is unfinished connection there. Only you, and she, will know the truth of that. And I also don’t want it to sound as though I think you should risk it all with some kind of hail mary “let’s get back together!” plea. 

Basically, I think whatever you think, so long as you answer these questions:

Is this about my most authentically human need for love & connection? Or am I being needy for love through numbing, neglecting, blaming or judging (self and others)? It’s a difference I ask myself regularly when considering matters of the heart.

And, is the time you spend mulling over what’s next limiting you, or liberating you? What is the most compassionate step you could take for yourself on a path to get un-stuck?

In the meantime, you get through it by gifting yourself room to breathe and grow. You feel your feelings in a safe space, perhaps with another loved one, because those bastards will beat their way to the forefront eventually and are far less maddening when we can sit, stay, good doggie (pats head) with them for a hot minute.

You get through it by remembering that you are here, alive and curious and introspective, already getting through.

Because one of the truest of true things I have learned from my time being really stuck in my emotional archive room is that the more I practice learning to love myself, my life, and others...to let in cracks of light even in small, digestible doses….the less appealing it feels to watch the same old boring footage again and again in darkness.

Hang up the whistle. Forgive your fumbles. Play the games of life and love remembering to, above all else, enjoy them, whenever you possibly can, simply because enjoying makes it worth lacing up for, no matter the final score.

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go” 


- mary oliver

With much love and gratitude,

Trish