Few are able to practice the art of being in a relationship, fewer still can practice the art of leaving a relationship.
Practiced well, the art is to leave without a trace.
No angst,
no sentimentality,
no resentment,
no revenge,
no well-wishing to cover
non-well-wishing,
no hope,
no under-the-radar communication.
Not for them, not for how we look, not to avoid pain,
not to practice detachment,
not to practice non-attachment.
Not to try to make
them feel any way.
We leave because the relationship is over.
We leave because, as we say in OM, the next stroke will be less sensational than the last.
We leave because it is the honest thing to do.
We leave to honor
what has been.
We leave because we
have the courage to do so.
We leave because we have fidelity to desire and desire has moved forward. To stay behind would be to stay where power no longer remains, where we are on the fear side of desire.
We take nothing with us:
no hostages,
no rainchecks,
no rights,
no accounting.
But, we do not leave a moment before it is over.
This is challenging because the only way to leave without a trace is to have lived, expressed, shown up, and spent everything we had while in the relationship. Whatever was withheld is what holds us back.
Whatever love was not expressed is what expresses now as grip, resentment, desire for vengeance, hope for the future. The part of us that holds on during the phase transition of a relationship is the part that was stingy during the relationship. When we love fully, we leave fully. We don’t leave with indifference because indifference has a slightly negative charge.
We leave with the whole of ourselves intact and the whole of ourselves seated in the new life of this moment. But the two go hand-in-hand. Withholding during equals being gripped after.
Loving fully means leaving fully.