After spending half a life with someone and having that relationship end can leave you lost. So much of your life becomes entwined around said person. Your traditions, habits and ways of living become wrapped around a life external to your own. And when that ends, all patterns of behaviour become reminders of what was lost.
In such a situation, how do you find yourself again?
This is exactly where I find myself: lost.
The good news is the unique opportunity this affords me. There are a multitude of paths in front of me. I would perhaps say that the options range from extremely unhealthy reactions all the way to neutral and beyond to healthy. Bitterness or over correcting could be one extreme. Bitterness is perhaps the easiest path. I will admit to anger. That is only natural. Being rejected by one you have loved for so long is a hard thing to process. Bitterness is an understandable reaction. An easy reaction. However, where does it get you other than alone and bitter? Then there is the over correction. Yes, I am single now. Yes, that allows me to look into all of the new flavours of love and sex I have never sampled. And yes, of course the desire to sample something new is tempting. But to do so merely represents an easy out. Another form of being lost in someone or something else's ability to create the sensation of being fulfilled. Drugs, love and sex and the drugs of love and sex cannot be the foundation to independent happiness.
I need to stand on my own two feet.
The other end of the spectrum is a truer form of health. Health from within and without. Health in the form of being comfortable in my own skin by myself and for myself. Health in the body, in shape, strength and flexibility. Free from dependency to anything external.
Realistically on any given day I fluctuate between both extremes. And that is OK. This will be a lifelong process of getting from the dark place to somewhere light. I've seen that darkness and I know, I 100% completely know, that this is not where I want to be. I want health and I choose health.
Here is another however, health is not easy when you have to live. Living sometimes calls for unhealthy choices. This requires the mortal balancing act of living and being healthy. Up to this point in my life I have not exactly been good at balance. Life has always been a zero sum game for me. This is another lesson to be learned late in life. How to ease off the accelerator and how to gently brake.
I am lost. I am no longer afraid of saying it out loud. I don't know where I am going. Previously this terrified me. I had a vision of my future. I knew where I was going to be in 20 years and who was going to be there with me. Now everything is a mist, wrapped in a fog, seen through broken glasses. First the lack of vision terrified me. Now, I see it for what it is: it will be the consequence of the work I put in today.
If I sit back and let life happen, life will happen, and no complaints can be made as to the quality or quantity of that life. However, the work I put in today for the life I want tomorrow, will lead to the life of my design and not someone else's.
As with all things, people are unlikely to see the work, only the result.
To wrap up, lost is a question of perspective. Knowing where you are and where you're going is a question of perspective. Each of these depends on the telescope, microscope, glasses or sunglasses you are looking through. Maybe they are rose tinted or even blacked out. All I know is that by a process of deduction I know what I need to leave behind and what is the general direction that I need to blindly grope towards, regardless of scraped and bruised knees as at times I may need to crawl before I can walk and then run there. Loneliness is less scary now, as I know I need to walk this path by myself. At least for now.
