More on Letting Go

4 October 2014

I overheard an interesting comment today about an addict's relationship with their drug of no-choice: 

"I love to get high... the problem is that that relationship isn't working for me anymore -- [the drug] isn't working for me anymore -- [the drug] doesn't love me back any more, it doesn't want me around any more... So it's time to move on from that relationship, as hard as it is to let go."

As easy as it is for me to let go of my relationship with alcohol, I still find it hard to let go of my relationship with Jason at times. Why is that? Is it something to do with me, or with the relationship?

I love him still, of course, as my love for him is unconditional. It just is what it is. Our relationship is another thing, however, distinct from both Jason and I as individuals. I love myself unconditionally, I love Jason unconditionally, but I find that I do not love, or even like, our relationship right now. And my relationship with Jason isn't loving me back right now either -- it just isn't working for me. 

I can keep giving Jason unconditional love through the relationship I maintain with him if I so choose, but I have to realize that I'm not receiving unconditional love from him in return. Jason is not uplifting to my spirit or to my recovery in this new relationship he's defined. He is not providing me with insight into his own psycho-spiritual growth processes. Do I want Jason to keep reflecting back to me the pain I've already suffered again and again? I am no masochist. Do I want or have the energy to devote to maintaining a long-distance platonic relationship with him? We do have plenty in common, as he was (and maybe still is?) my best friend. Can I afford to use my limited energy resources maintaining a platonic friendship half way across the country? I am striking out on a new direction in life as an Artist, and need to take the plunge with the totality of my being's energy in order to realize my dream. What opportunities for growth, self-actualization, and connection with others who are available emotionally and spiritually am I missing by maintaining a relationship that isn't working? And, as he points out, may never work again? I can't afford to hold on to old ideas for the sake of nostalgia, or out of habit; I am casting aside pet hypotheses and shedding bad habits as I continue to grow into this new skin.

It's not just the physical distance that bothers me, but the emotional and spiritual distance. I have true, good, honest friends who have the utmost faith and confidence in me, and then there's Jason. Simply put, I don't feel loved and supported in my relationship with Jason as it has been in the last several weeks. I don't feel nurtured and encouraged. I don't feel remembered and validated. The painful truth is that this relationship in its new form is not working for me. It has occupied entirely too much mental real estate for entirely too long. Maybe it wasn't too long, though -- maybe it was just long enough for me to learn to let go of this relationship, through which I've suffered and so learned a great deal.

Maybe this relationship with Jason has already taught me its life lessons. Forever teachable, I have learned and grown tremendously as a result.

But maybe it's time for me to let "us" go. Maybe the sole purpose of that relationship was to help me actualize my Highest Self -- Dana, Artist in Recovery -- and now that I am here, it's time to release Jason and allow him to continue along his own life's journey, and to find his own life's purpose, happiness, and bliss, as I have found mine and grow deeper in it.

Where am I going here? I realize that I love Jason, and I always will. But I realize also that the relationship in its present form, or how it has been for the last many weeks, is not working for me any more. As such, I have to let "us" go. I have to let go of the relationship in its present form so that other relationships in a higher form can occupy that place in my heart -- be it with a more highly evolved and healed Jason, or with another highly evolved partner who is capable and willing of loving me exactly as I am today, exactly where I am today.

The space that Jason has in my immeasurably large heart will always and forever be limitless, as it is born of unconditional love. The space that our old relationship occupied has been released, so that I have the opportunity to grow further. 

I will continue to grow and to evolve in my intimate relationships with others -- be it by continuing to explore my bisexuality through intimate physical relationships, or to explore greater psychological growth growth through intimate emotional and polyamorous relationships, or to explore greater consciousness and spiritual growth through intimate physical, emotional, and psychological relationships. 

By this same token, I release Jason to experience his own psycho-spiritual growth through his own intimate relationships. It may be the case that Jason will one day want a new, healthy relationship with me that is founded in unconditional love and trust, and it may be the case that he will not, or that I will not, or that I will be unavailable when his time comes.

I trust that the Universe will actualize whichever outcome is is meant to be, as I live confidently, secure in the light and love of my Higher Self -- Dana, Artist in Recovery.