Believing in love...for the first time

I decided that a relationship I'd been in for almost a year wasn't working for me and we stopped seeing each other. It's been a few months now and I am sometimes troubled by concerns about the choices I made:  what I said, what I did.... Was I clear? gentle? loving? Did I act in alignment with my values for kindness, direct communication, and honesty? I've been beating myself up a little, thinking that maybe I didn't handle this breakup very well. I suppose that many of you have had experiences of this kind...yes? (I kind of hope so, just so I won't be alone.)

Well, yesterday, soaring tens of thousands of feet above the earth on my way home from a business trip, I suddenly had a new perspective. I literally got the "30,000 foot view" organizational planners are always talking about...but on my personal life. The epiphany struck me with such force, I'd have fallen out of any chair into which I wasn't wedged like a sardine in a can (thank you, Delta, for saving me from that fate).

Here's what I suddenly realized:  that was the first time in my life I've intentionally and mindfully ended a romantic relationship. I think it's the first time I was fully an adult during and through the end of a romance.

Even now, as I write those words, I am stunned by this reality. I am 60 and 1/2 years old and this is the first time in my life I've said no to a romantic relationship from a place of grounded self-awareness of my needs, and a clear-eyed observation of my potential partner's ability to meet those needs. This is the first time I left because I felt I wanted something else and deserved to have it. So what if I didn't do it perfectly! (No offense/insult intended to the other party.) But, really, if I flubbed the details a bit this first time, I think I can stop feeling bad about that. I should be throwing myself a party, celebrating with loved ones this amazing victory of personal growth!

Freedom: A Glorious Madness

The universe has been bringing me opportunities to think about freedom. Oddly, it started with me catching a piece of a Big Bang Theory re-run. Will Wheaton asks Sheldon Cooper, "You don't like me, do you, Sheldon?" Sheldon replies haughtily and proudly that he owns Ihatewillwheaton.com, .org, and .net, and asks Will, in an aggressive tone, "What do you think of that?" Will's reply is brilliant. He says, "I think I'm living rent-free, right here," as he taps Sheldon's forehead.

That reminder that I give rent-free space to everyone about whom I spend time brooding brought with it the sobering notion that I'm not free. As long as I maintain space in my head for unhappy thoughts about people who have attacked and tried to hurt me, who disrespected me, who violated me or my "stuff" (some of them, many years ago), I am not free. When I let my life be taken over by thoughts and feelings about how I've been wronged, hurt, used, or disregarded, I'm chained for life to the job of "Building Super" in my History Hotel. I'm stuck in a no-pay lifetime commitment, maintaining property for every person I think has wronged or hurt me. They wander the halls of my mind in their pajamas, stepping on the popcorn they've dropped. I trail along behind them with my vacuum, grumbling and sucking up their mess.