Today I had a rough one. I had planned to join my mountain biking buddies on a ride through Cooper’s Gap. It’s a rugged area and a ton of fun. But I was too hung up on the proposed mileage, the heat, and the possibility of ending up with a wicked headache after. I just wanted to do something low key. Still, the thought of missing out was getting to me. Ultimately, I hemmed and hawed with my morning such that it was too late for me to meet up with them.
So then the next question become: what DO I do? Do I bike? Hike? Trail run? Mushroom hunt? I am not a good decision maker.
It’s been dark lately. My heart hurts. My joy has faded. Just with the onset of summer and I can’t seem to look forward to anything. Even getting out into nature feels like a chore. I force myself to, because I know I’ll feel better once I’m there, but it’s all mind games until I’m stepping (or riding) off on the trail.
I finally settled on a chill bike ride through the Scotia Barrens, exploring the (few) multi-use trails out there. It was…ok. I guess more than ok, but I definitely would have liked to explore the “forbidden” trails. There was hardly anyone out there. I think next time I may just break the rules and bike on the hiking only trails.
I found a row of crab apple trees. I spent a lot of time looking for morels. Not a single one. There were birbs. May apples. Columbines. A fun Little Rock outcropping. A few ticks. Gunshots. And the most fragrant pitch pine.
But there was one very important piece missing. And that knowing just keeps my heart in a constant state of throbbing pain.
Hi, my name is Kate. My question is, when you have the clarity to understand that your relationship is not healthy and you can’t stay in it, but you love the person, how do you walk away with grace and dignity, and let go of the resentment and remorse that may have come from the relationship, and just carry on into the light of yourself?
Cheryl Strayed:
Oh, Kate, this is a question that I would say that it’s really one of the very most common questions I get, because it is hard to tell someone you love, that you no longer want to be with them, that you don’t want to stay, that you want to go and you want to go even though you love the person. And that you don’t want to have that goodbye be one that’s one full of anger and wreckage and animosity.
Cheryl Strayed:
And the advice I give over and over again, it’s such a simple piece of advice and so hard to do. But what I know for sure, Kate, is you can do it, is that you tell the truth and you tell the truth with all of your heart and all of your compassion and all of your intelligence, and all of your courage and all of your strength. And you hold within you that little beautiful glowing gem of clarity that contains two truths that are not opposite each other, that you love this person you’ve been in partnership with, and you want to end the relationship as it exists now.
Cheryl Strayed:
And that you always return to that. You say that you don’t want to hold resentment and remorse and all of those things. And I think that that’s about staying mindful about your intentions. Your intentions are to lovingly end the relationship, and sometimes there’s anger and resentment gets tangled up in that. But I promise you, if you can stay true to that deepest core choice within yourself, those things won’t be what dominate your mind or the tenor of this breakup.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, you’ve just solved so many of the reasons why many of my breakups did not end well,
Glennon Doyle:
Both things at once. It’s so beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
I just wasn’t able to be completely honest, I just wasn’t. And I thought it was kindness, but in fact my lack of ability to be completely truthful was probably in the long run unkindness.
Cheryl Strayed:
It’s so true. And Abby, I think that it goes back to this terrible binary thing. I think a lot of people feel like, well, in order to leave, in order for me to say this isn’t working for me and I want to end this relationship, or at least in the way that it exists right now, romantic, sexual, whatever, I want to transition into a friendship or I want to end it all together, whatever it is, is that we think we have to have a reason that is outside of ourselves. It has to be, you’re a bad person. You don’t meet my needs in this way.
Cheryl Strayed:
You can’t just say like, you are amazing and I love you and I’m so grateful for everything we shared and everything I learned from you. And I will love you always in a different way, but I no longer want to be in this relationship. Just to say with simple clarity that truth, I think so many people feel that and are terrified of saying it. And so what they do is then they make it dirty.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
They make it dirty.
Cheryl Strayed:
They lie, they manipulate and gaslight. They create conflict where there really doesn’t need to be any. All of those things then end up… We make a dirty break instead of a clean one.
Glennon Doyle:
We demonize the other person, because we think we have to prove ourself… We have to make a case for leaving, because we don’t think we deserve to just go because we want to.
I want to write you in the ferns lay down footers in rocky soil stay in this moment for all eternity because out there is just too much but here it’s never enough.
If the bear doesn’t see us does that mean we were never there? if he hears us and walks away if the snake sunbathes in a different spot if the ferns grow taller in another hollow if the vernal pond reaches our knees can they still bear witness to our existence?
Let’s recon this path together as it descends, decide when to stop and return home
I was reminded today / how you tried to convince me that my life was a fraud / that I was playing it safe, too afraid to take a risk / wasn’t it clear to me that everything I was doing was wrong? / you told me I wasn’t brave for leaving it all behind / but today it occurred to me / how brave I was for staying.
musings and mishaps of an unconditional lover 