If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to
the thing itself but to your own estimate of it;
and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
~ Marcus Aurelius
A few years ago, an important friend and I had a falling out. It was complicated with hefty guilt and recriminations in both camps. A flirtation with rapprochement ultimately was unsuccessful due to unrealistic expectations and unreconcilable wants and needs. The ensuing separation carried the grave weight of finality. Confident I was in the right, I blazed with anger: surely a more reasonable person could find a way to peaceable accord!
With the surety of righteousness on my side, I furiously deleted all contact information, all old emails. I binned photos, letters, any momentos of years of inside jokes and understanding. This is unlike me. But rejection touches emotional scar tissue for me, so this time, I decided to embrace it. Friend, you are undeserving of me.
Years passed. I met any pang of loneliness with the fierce steel of anger. I only allowed the occasional cloud of wistfulness, usually when I heard a song or something I just knew my friend would appreciate. The Buddhists say that the root of all suffering is "grasping and wanting," so I told myself this was a healthy letting go. (Oh, my clever, clever ego...)
When I saw the inevitable crossing of paths approaching, I extended the olive branch, which was accepted, I think reluctantly. I was elated. Maybe this, finally, could be the reconciliation I really had wanted all along. I met every angry argument in my head with compassion for my friend's point of view. As always, it worked, and I found the anger went away. When we met, I remained doggedly upbeat and we stayed on safe ground. (How about this weather? Any fun vacations planned?) I worked up the courage to say it - I miss you - and I tried not to wait for a response in kind.
But of course, I did. I waited. No follow up came, and all the old grasping and wanting returned - I want, I want, I want - and the fear and loathing of rejection bloomed. I'm learning to sit in this garden, open to the lessons I guess I still need to learn. How curious our reluctance to let go of those tiresome wants, as if letting them go means forgetting and losing something precious in its entirety: better to hang on to a ragged fragment of something valuable than lose it all together.
Grief is the story of letting go. We mourn the loss of ourselves, of the people we love. Sting sang, "everybody's got to leave the darkness sometime," but the only way to get out of the darkness is by going through it and saying good-bye.
And you?
How have you learned to let go?
Catherine,
ReplyDeleteI've been mulling a blog post like this for a while, but not nearly as eloquent as what you've written.
When we grieve the death of a loved one, it hurts but we know that all living things must die. When we go through a break up, it's painful but we understand that monogamy means you only get to choose one life partner so maybe you aren't a fit for each other.
When a friendship ends, though, it's hard not to take it personally, as a referendum on your value. There's no limit on the number of friends we can have, no finality of death, so the rejection is purely by choice.
But I've been trying to reflect on some wonderful friendships that have ended and let go by looking at friendships as a reflection of who we are and what we need at a particular time in our lives. Because you grow and change and have different needs from friends later doesn't negate how special a friend was to you earlier in life.
My next-door neighbors at my first post-college apartment were like family to me that first year. Now I think they're in LA but I'm not sure. Our circumstances have changed but I still love the role they played in my life two decades ago.
I think it's a shame we don't have a social norm for breaking up with a friend. You take her out for dinner, thank her for the good times, explain that you're moving on. Maybe you both go home, look at old photos and have a good cry, but it's acknowledged for what it is.
Maybe what makes it so hard for you to let go of this friendship is the possibility that it's not over? Maybe it's time to just grieve that it is, but appreciate what it was before it ended?