Hold On Loosely...

Funny how lessons repeat until you learn them.

Last year I had two lovers who ended our relationship because they got girlfriends who couldn't handle us being friends even if we weren't sleeping together. This meant that not only was I not able to see them again in any situation, but that my email and phone number had to be erased and "friendship links" in the social networking world had to be severed.

And in some ways that's what all of it felt like, as though the ties that bound us together had been severed fairly violently.

However, I now see this was my ego talking. It liked to emo-mope and listen to this wonderful song on repeat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY)

The lack of them in my life was something that I had a difficult time processing, as in both cases I felt I had been important to these men as a friend, and in one case I felt like I had done a service for him that should have deserved some higher honor. You can notice here the ego words surfacing again, such as "deserved" and "important."

Don't get me wrong, I believe in conducting oneself in a way that brings honor to you and those around you. And I would hope that those people I choose to have in my life feel this way as well. But if they don't, then you either need to decide it's ok or decide you don't want them in your life. You can't "make" people conform to your standards, and it wouldn't be an honest/real change in them even if you could.

But back to the gentlemen in question...

I have at different junctions in my life been part of polyamorous relationships, so I was not averse to the idea of them dating other people. I understood that, since in both cases we weren't "forever" matches for each other, that it was inevitable that they would find women who were better suited to them for serious relationships. I was even prepared to be happy for them and their new monogamous relationships, as I would hope they would be happy for me had I been the one to find a relationship I wanted to pursue.

But in this case, it was more the fact that I was hurt and I missed them that was really the crux of the situation. I wanted them to be mine in some small way, and not change, even though I realized that we were not meant to keep/hold each other in the relationship world.

So what did I learn from all this? There are a number of things...

First, not everyone feels secure enough to know that their significant other has people in their lives with whom they've been intimate. What if things weren't going well in your relationship and they had a "relapse" and ending up sleeping with their Ex? And it would be easy if they were someone you saw regularly, right? I don't feel this way, as most of my Exes are that way for a reason and if there is a spoken or unspoken pact to be monogamous, I believe one should do everything in one's power to honor that (or if that seems impossible, to renegotiate the pact). But part of being able to relax into a relationship for many people is feeling safe in the fact that they are the only one their significant other will be interacting with in the realm of loving relationships.

Second, as much as I am really not a dangerous female to have around (meaning I may be predatory, but if you are off limits, I respect that), other women do not always perceive me as such. I think it's easier to make me more dangerous if you haven't met me. My myth, which proceeds me apparently, is much more interesting than I am in the flesh. Part of me thinks that's pretty awesome. The other part is sad that this sometimes makes it impossible for me to keep men in my life as friends.

The last thing I learned, and this is something that finally sunk in deeply just a bit ago, is that in the ocean of energy that is the universe, those connections that seem to have been sundered on the lower plain are not really ones which can be severed on the higher/energetic plains. The bonds we make endure. And the people we connect to are always connected to us. All it takes is for us to get quiet and connect deeply with ourselves, then reach out to feel them still swimming with us in the ocean.

I can miss them. But I have good memories of them for the most part. I can find it in my heart to wish them as much love and joy as they can hold in their lives and their new relationships. And I can take comfort in the fact that we never really lose those we love.

I am right this minute practicing the belief (it's a spiritual muscle you have to develop, people!!) that we meet the people we are supposed to meet. We love those who we are meant to. We are parted at exactly the right time. And we are never parted in the end.

To paraphrase Epictetus, I am "learning to wish that everything comes to pass exactly as it does."