Twenty months ago I ended my relationship with my partner of 23 years.
Happily ended. I wanted and needed it to end.
Sometimes I miss the security and comfort of that relationship, despite the clash, conflict and lack of connection.
Why? Because we were family. With all the good and the bad.
I remember clearly one night several months back, hearing a car parking on the street and for a split second I was happily waiting for him to walk through the door.
Sometimes nowadays when my X and I text each other, I am just so happy to be in that familiar banter and rapport with him. I could plotz with glee.
Why? Because we really were family.
But mostly these twenty months have been a wonderfully freeing time for me.
Beyond the initial whoosh of release and relief, I have experienced an amazing re-alignment of my values, interests and choices. My days flow. There are no obstacles, no serious lows, no energetic irritants. Life is good.
It is so so hard and painful to break up a family, and to stop the clock on the accumulation of memories and shared time. It took me years of deep pain to gather my strength to make the leap.
Recently I pulled up a vision/goal/dream list I wrote soon after the break-up that envisioned my aspirations for a life in perfect harmony, total alignment.
With 50 items bulleted on it, I could only hope to achieve a few. To my amazement, in reviewing it now all these months later, I have incorporated into my life 43 things on my list on a regular basis, with 5 more lining up and 2 indefinitely postponed.
I wrote the list all those months ago and forgot about it. But it did not forget about me.
My top three items on this list were to find a wonderful, kind new love (6 months and happy!); to sell my house and find my dream house (my house goes for sale this month!); and to go through 45 years of archival letters and writings and photographs in order to reflect on the past and parse out what I really need to hold on to (done!).
I listed the things I wanted and needed in my life to feel truly alive- from close connections with people; to meaningful volunteer and consulting work as an end of life doula, hospice volunteer, retirement/third act coach, and wellness coach; to the following of physical, mental and spiritual practices like yoga, hiking, rowing, meditation, Mussar, Shabbat, poetry, reading, writing, watching of wonderfully creative media content, and more.
I have come into my true self. I feel rich. Almost every day I have a sense of feeling so rich and blessed and grateful for this moment. This spiritual richness is the most meaningful sense of contentment I have ever experienced.
What do you want from your one precious life? What makes you feel rich?
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