His new friend

offered to move him in,

Offered to support him.

She told him that if I had

Really Loved Him,

I’d be the one

Making The Offer.

That that’s

what love is.

Thankfully, I know

that’s not Love.

That’s

Manipulation.

I do love him.

And I love me.

And so, I said

No.

(Title borrowed without permission from The Nields. Hope they won’t mind.)

You are not my raison d’ etre.

No longer the sun that I orbit around

She has done for you in 4 weeks what I could not accomplish

in 4 years:

Get you sober

Get you praying

Get you work

I know it’s unfair because you did so much to heal me

And now that it’s your turn I am too healed 

To be your savior

For I love myself too much 

And my kids and my friends are too dear

For that sacrifice

Isolation. Complete devotion.

It’s what you require and now that I am here

You are there 

And I cannot be who you want

And I do not want to be who you need

I want to be me

Free

I want to fly solo 

Spread my wings and see just where the winds take me

For I know

It is my time to soar.

I am happy for you

And I will hold you in my heart

Deep, deep in my heart

For all of my days

For always. 

It never gets any easier, not when you’re 15 and you *feel* your body rip to shreds at the mere thought of *it* being over. Not at 22, when all of your life plans made around *that* relationship fall to pieces, and you spend an entire summer wailing along with Melissa Etheridge’s, “Like The Way I Do.” Not when you’re 51, and your long-deceased marriage is finally declared dead (that’s actually an entirely different sort of ache), nor four years later when your rebound “what-you-thought-would-only-be-a-2-week-fantasy-fling” flames out due to kids, and work, and politics, that pandemic puppy that you knew was not a good idea. They all hurt. But at 55, what compounds the pain, is the knowledge that you *will* get through it (because you always have). You can’t wallow in bed all summer, you can’t cry all night on the phone with your bestie (because *he* was your bestie,) you can’t even eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s (because then you’d *really* feel like shit). Balancing the *knowledge* that you’re going to be just fine, with deep the pain of the heart is so completely unsatisfying. You might as well get over it already. Maybe, I’m a glutton for punishment. Maybe, I *like* wallowing, maybe, just maybe, being a grown up kinda sucks that way, and sometimes, what you *really need* is a sad, sad song on the radio and a drippy mascara cry while you walk the dog in the early morning light. (Even as the sun shines through the trees and you hear yourself thinking, “You’re going to be alright.”)