staying in the moment

I felt great this morning. Empowered. Free. Unencumbered. All morning I whispered my prayer to the universe "please don't email me...please don't email me...", not because I don't want him to email me but because I don't want the pain, the games, the half truths, the false hope that the emails incite. I didn't want this forward momentum to be interrupted by being yanked into the past again. When I checked my email and found nothing, I lifted my head and smiled. Relieved.

I enjoyed a lazy yoga practice, coffee with a friend, sang loudly to bad music in my car, had a gorgeous afternoon visit packed with messages of inspiration, and came home to prepare to teach yoga to a friend. As I went about my business I felt so grateful that I get to stay in Toronto to enjoy more perfect days, just like this one. I thought curiously of Copenhagen and tested myself - did I want to go to Copenhagen this summer? Yes. I did. I hoped so hard for it to happen, for it to be real this time. I looked forward to living a little yogi life in Copenhagen with my boy. But Copenhagen is not going to be, he made sure of that, so I'm also glad not to disrupt the flow of what is shaping up to be a wonderful life and the community developing around me in Toronto by leaving again.

Then, sometime after dinner, it hit me. Wow, no email. He's really not going to contact me. There really won't be a visit. He really is doing this to me again. It really is over - again. I thought of all the ways it hurts to be betrayed, to have my hopes and trust dashed, of how much I will miss him, and how sad it is that we won't be a part of each others lives. The blues settled in with a vengeance.

You didn't know, did you internet? That the boy came back before Christmas speaking of mistakes, of being together, of marriage and two kids, and of certainty that, yes, this is what he wants. He spoke of it for three weeks. Conversations that lasted for hours, negotiations over who visits who where, much convincing on his part that he was serious this time - committed - it all lasted just up until the point that I agreed. And then it fell apart. Sunday evening we agreed that we deserved to give it another chance and settled on arrival/departure dates, Monday morning he spoke of fears, sadness, pain and his broken heart, but no booked ticket. The visit was off. Just like that, just like last time.

I feel exactly as you would expect me to feel after being left by somebody who had spent weeks convincing me of their sincerity - for the second (or is it third?) time. Except a bit different because I've been through this with this man already.

This time I was able to remember that only an hour ago I sang along loudly to bad music while driving home from a great afternoon and looked forward to the surprises my future holds. Now I'm blue. Soon I won't be again. This time I'm able to remember that the ebbs won't stay ebbs, they'll transition into flows before beginning the cycle again, and it's all good. I'm able to remember that I made it through this sadness and loss before and I can do it again. I'm able to remember that I lived a great life without the boy and I'll keep doing so. And I remember that there were a lot of things I was looking forward to doing this summer that I couldn't have done if were in Copenhagen.

And this time is different because I know without a doubt that I did every single thing I could to make this work. I welcomed him back after the painful silence of the fall, agreed to move to be with him, agreed to conditions I wasn't entirely pleased with but was willing to sacrifice to give us a chance, maybe made more allowances than I should have, definitely made more excuses for poor behaviour than I should have, and apologized for my own poor behaviour.

It still wasn't enough to make us work but it was enough to help me make peace with the fact that we are not going to work. I'm not happy about it and it's not what I want; I want the lovely life I imagined I could have with this person, but I want to actually HAVE that life, not to IMAGINE about it and it takes two like minds and equal efforts to make that happen (not to mention being in the same country ;). So, even though I'm sad and disappointed all over again and I will so miss him I can make peace with all of that because there's only so much that I can do and I did the best I could while doing it.