Renewal

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

-E. M. Forster

A year ago today, at 8:15 a.m., I woke up to “the email.” Several paragraphs of his itinerary, day-to-day stress, random thoughts on Chile, and then, “I love you and I miss you but I’m unhappy and you’re the reason why.” A few days before he had sent me photos saying the place he was filming would be great for getting married. A week before we looked at houses together. An email, after five and a half years and living together and talking about our grand future together.

A writer I dated once said, don’t date a writer if you don’t want your story told. But this is my story to tell, and it’s one, sadly, that many strong, powerful, smart women I know have shared. Not exactly an email, but…similar devastating and unexpected endings. Endings that can leave you stumbling.

Six weeks later (logistics are a bitch), single, 42, childless, I drove myself and my dog to San Francisco and cried the whole way up, got pulled over by the CHP on the grapevine because the rental SUV was swaying due to gusty winds and I couldn’t focus (no officer, not drunk, just crying), had a myriad of post-apocalyptic weather on the way up, red dustballs, bursts of rain, getting stuck on the bay bridge for an hour, and was told I couldn’t park where I did when I arrived. Something in my eyes (or the fact my entire body was melting in sorrow into the concrete) caused the attendant to change his mind; “Leave the car here,” he said, and left a note on the windshield that read, “Mike says it’s ok.”

My god! Mike says it is ok! I will be ok.

The thing is, I wasn’t ok.

San Francisco was a stark contrast to the sun and basky bask of L.A. There were days the foghorns masked my sobs and the dewy mist hid the tears streaming down my face, there were days when getting up and walking my dog and then immediately hibernating was a good day. At 4am I would lie awake looking at the lights on the bay bridge and question everything– why I chose a project over the trip to the Amalfi Coast, why I got so angry at the thumping bass from our next door neighbor, why I didn’t cherish the wine and pizza nights. Why I wasn’t worthy of his love.

A group of friends and I used to have these Gertrude Stein-esque dinner parties where we would talk about the companies we started and changing the world. At one, once, I drew a triangle on a napkin and wrote,”Startup/Love/Home” on each point. I proclaimed these the three pivotal and necessary points for success in life.

I said if you lose one it’s ok, but TWO and the whole thing falls down like a house of cards. After “the email” I went hiking with my cousin and expounded on how ALL THREE POINTS WERE RUINED and therefore my life was a disaster and she said, well, maybe those aren’t the right things to focus on, and it should be a circle. (!)

She also said:

“You heal in the time it takes you to heal.”

Here’s the thing about resilience–it’s not really that, it’s compartmentalization– you can be even better at your job because it is the only thing that keeps you focused and feeling valued. Two of the ecommerce sites I worked on immediately post-move won awards. I inspired a half dozen friends to start their own businesses. You can put on “the face” and seem entirely normal while you’re barely existing as a fully functioning human being.

I was told, god forbid I write about this! It could hurt my job (no), it could close me off to a true love (also, no, and for the record I want someone who has experienced profound love and loss). I was shamed on social media for the few distraught posts I made. I was told to get over it, move on, and made to feel as if something was deeply broken in me if I couldn’t pick up the pieces right away. I was told this whole “thing” was a first world problem (true, but still doesn’t mean I wasn’t feeling awful). People thought if they insulted him it would help but that just insulted me by default. I kept thinking of that line in Pulp Fiction, “they say a lot, don’t they.”

The saddest part is knowing none of them had experienced the kind of profound love, that depth of beauty and intensity, that when lost–makes it seem as if each breath could bring you to your knees.

Sometimes, when you are thrown off a cliff you don’t choose to fly or fall–you hover

I took myself to an island for a vacation, took months off from work, went with my dog to our secret spots, but it only took one thing, an English accent, a drone flying above, seeing a Canon 5d, overhearing a conversation about Paris–we will always have Paris–and the illusion was gone. I’d walk the streets of San Francisco for hours, languishing in the poetry of lyrics we both loved, remembering driving Mulholland with the top down;

“There something inside you
Its hard to explain
They’re talking about you boy
But you’re still the same.”

Once, he and I were like horse and jockey hurdling through our dreams–the artist and the entrepreneur, the nights at soho house paired with hiking the next day–it was the kind of love and intensity too few experience–and now, it was just me. Just me, and when I realized he wasn’t coming back, I knew this was no intermission.

It got worse–while I was barely breathing, I discovered Instagram posts announcing his year anniversary with another woman–for a full six months it turned out my ex lived a double life, where he was living with me whilst dating someone else. He hurt not only me, but her–and an innocent party was inadvertently complicit in my pain. The discovery of this caused me to weep out loud on the streets and curl into a ball in the corner of my bedroom, thinking all of this was some cruel nightmare, some punishment for the hearts I had broken in the past, or an unkind interaction…and then thinking, no, nothing I have ever done deserves that kind of reciprocation.

It’s never the loss of a relationship per se, it is the loss of stable footing and the hopes and the dreams. And it is only the men who tell me it’s ok if I never have a child (because I want a child of my own, as the result of a partnership). But to lose the relationship, the one you thought was the “one”, and to be 42–well that’s a whole new level of loss and despair. It’s the type of thing that makes you question everything.

I had moments of clarity and vision, moments where I thought I’d figured everything out from why “strong” women sometimes fail at love; to knowing precisely what my next startup would be; to owning it with running up and down Coit Tower; to realizing I was simply hovering and…if I listed the things I loved, I didn’t make the list.

My biggest lesson in this past year is that it is about time the love for myself is at the top of that list. It is about time I live the life that’s been waiting for me.

Many entrepreneurs experience some soul-sucking devastation that propels them like a catalyst–and there’s something dark yet lovely about rising from the ashes like a phoenix, beginning anew. But before the phoenix rises you must choose to stop hovering and start to fly.

I began a new life, I accepted the past and am ready to embrace the future. But I needed to write about this, about the love, the pain, and getting through to the other side. It is only through honoring all of this with the voice of a writer–my childhood dream–that I can truly let it go and fly.

Today I chose to fly.

Addendum–January 3, 2017

It is a New Year. I received a gift a few days ago, one that truly helps me release the past, and I have modified this blog slightly as a result. Too often, we hide the pain we experience–but by my writing this blog and publishing my truth, I was able to help someone else find the truth. As a small business owner, life is busy and I spend my days solving problems for clients and others. But I hovered with my own personal healing as I sought answers that only arrived recently. Today is a new day, and it is a new year, and to quote my wise cousin again…it is time to “move forward, locomotion.”