( artist unknown)
There is an ebb and flow to life, to relationships, to harmony and living the best life we can. Often people in our lives are there for seasons. Even in meant to be forever relationships (like a marriage that is committed to forever) there are also seasons of ebb ....seasons of less closeness even if it doesn't end in divorce. In our children, we find moments where we are closer and moments when we need to live our own lives. Most importantly, the ebb and flow happens in friendships where both parties are seeking growth in ways that do not include the other person. In the past, I have had childhood friends who have grown apart from me but years later, we unexpectedly salvaged what we lost for a few years...and I have had others who left more permanently and it's better that way.
As an INFJ I have a door slam (see HERE and HERE ) but I also have a strange way of accepting a new phase in relationships. I see it coming. I feel it. I try to fight for it and hope maybe I'm wrong or maybe it's just me that needs to focus...But deep down I know. And the grieving comes. Sometimes for years on and off - and it's deep and emotional. But suddenly, when the break happens, I am surprised at what I thought would break me too, only brings relief. Part of that is what is common in both INTJ and INFJs - the relief that there is finally a clear path. A clear schedule. A final decision. No matter if it is good or bad immediately and possibly forever there is relief to go with....anything that is clear.
But the other part of the relief happens when I honestly know I conducted myself in the best possible way, that we ALMOST had it all, and that most of the memories were beautiful. There may have been some hurt or blame but most of the time, when the breaking point hits, it's suddenly not all that hurtful. There are times it will be sad because loss always is. There are times when a habit happens and one is jolted into realization that one person in that old form is no more. But, if at the end of a relationship, most of what is felt is gratitude...it shows that both people were pretty good to each other. They simply needed something else.
Maybe life will bring them back together after sufficient lessons and growth to treat each other differently? Maybe life has more lessons to teach before such a reconciliation of a new chapter is possible? Or maybe it will be permanent? Like a death in a sense (with a proper goodbye if one is lucky which I was.) Most of the time, if it was good in any way...it comes back in another form later.
For 15 years I had a kindred spirit in my life. She was my other soul mate in many ways but sometimes two soul mates is just too demanding. Life deteriorates too and some choices, be them good or bad, cause division. Some mindsets can't be worked around and require soul work. And soul work often has to be individual to both parties often enough.
I can say I thought I would be destroyed when this day came. On and off I would think of it and get frightened or grieve. But gradual distance happened anyway and while I grieved each of those, I came to this point where there is nothing left to grieve. There ARE things to forgive if I think of them too much but I choose generally to quickly feel them, move through them, and become positive in who I am and who she is. And I ask my community to hold me accountable to not allow the poison of what could have beens or she should have been ect to creep in over time. Positivity matters. And gratitude. There is so much gratitude.
I never thought I would feel...relief...happiness and freedom. And it's not because my Kindred wasn't worth it. It actually is because she WAS. It was mostly healthy most of the time until the beginning of the end...and it needed to have a clear, kind goodbye before it became something more miserable. Before it became embittered too much. Before it melted into unkindness, apathy and murky blame. Part of this is because INFJ's understand other people's emotions before their own. ( See HERE for more.)
15 years of knowing almost everything about each other...makes you almost able to predict how each other will move on. I knew she would be relieved. But honestly, I could not have predicted my relief, but I think a few nice surprises are always a good thing...but the rest, the rest is easy to predict. I often wondered how married couples could part amicably and still be friends or be able to wave if they see each other or wish each other well..and now I know. There are SOUL MATES like my husband and I seem to be. And then there are KINDREDS...and there in lies the difference. One can sustain almost all of life...the other simply lasts for as long as it can. It may flow in, it may ebb out, but it's not a constant. Kindred married couples, I think, are the ones who can still part friendly and keep that friendship sustained. Soul mates, if they do break, break completely and bitterly and CAN NOT keep a friendship because what they had was far too exclusive, mutual, secret and committed. Yes, Kindreds are too but there is a little less of that soul, that shared ness I think. I could be wrong but that is now how I can sort of understand it. That said I wasn't in a marriage luckily. At times it oddly felt like that the rare time, and maybe that is also why we both needed to break. Or a break. Or an ending for a new beginning. Who knows?
I always wanted a friend whom I could share the Wicked song "For Good" with. That seemed impossible to me because in order to have that...that person would have to be a deep sister kindred...and then there would have to be an end that wasn't death in order to say a goodbye, with enough kindness left and thought-fullness to be able to say:
"I've heard it said, That people come into our lives for a reason. Bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them. And we help them in return. Well, I don't know if I believe that's true. But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder, halfway through the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better. But because I knew you. I've been changed for good. It may well be that we will never meet again in this lifetime. So let me say before we part, that so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end. I know you have re written mine by being my friend.Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better but because I knew you I have been changed for good. And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness for the things I've done you blame me for, but then again I guess there is blame to share and none of that seems to matter anymore. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun. (By a wind off the sea) Like a stream that meets a boulder (Like a seed dropped by a bird) Halfway through the wood.(In the wood) Who can say if I've been changed for the better. I do believe I have been changed for the better. And because I knew you...[Elphaba:] Because I knew you...[Both:]Because I knew you.I have been changed...For good." ( For Good Wicked Lyrics)
Maybe I should be careful what I wish for? Or maybe I should be thankful wishes come true? I guess it is all truly boils down to perspective.
My mother's sister passed away a year tomorrow, my husband's mother 3 years on Sunday...and today my mom quoted Shakespeare in her reverie, "Beware the ides of March." Yes, March seems to bring loss but it also signifies the end to Winter, Winter's death so to speak, and Spring renewal. I am not in any way trivializing loss, as I often feel it more than most will ever know...but I also feel hope and beginnings. Beware the ides of March ...it was a warning I knew at all times. I saw it coming. Recently I posted a picture of me and my bestie and my heart told me it was near the end. I knew when I shared the photo, that it was signifying a short end soon. I didn't want to say it out loud. I fought it. I guess who wouldn't? I had nightmares and warning dreams I chose not to share with her because I hoped I wouldn't make it happen sooner. Something good is hard to let go of...but it's like an apple. Eventually the red rosey shine dulls, and one day the brown starts inside. If it isn't eaten or given away to be enjoyed by someone else soon, the rot on the inside eventually takes over the entire beauty and suddenly there is a mushed brown blob where a flourishing healthy fruit used to be. Instead of allowing rot, we give the apple away to someone who will eat it if we are not going to... That was probably a weird analogy but hopefully it illustrates more of my point.
I know some people were jealous of our relationship. They were baffled about it. At a point that maybe should have been the beginning of the end, I didn't want to PROVE them right...that it was too weird or not normal. But then I realized that it still was a treasure regardless and it would have been something I was jealous of too. And I was lucky to have it for many, many seasons. It was HARD work sometimes, and sometimes it was easy, most of the time it was chill but it could also be intense. For all the "I told you something like that couldn't last." I say, "But didn't we almost have it all? It DID last for more than a decade of life...half way to two decades...and thus it lasted the season it was meant to last." There are things that make me angry if I dwell on them but mostly...not. In some ways it is no longer a loss because of how things were un spiralling...it would have been no loss at all if time would have kept us together- eventually it would have all been rotten. But this way, if I focus on the positives, I still see the sweet apple. And maybe that apple will be preserved as a jam sometime to be shared in the future (ha that metaphor is not working as perfectly as I would like.) We have said our official goodbyes but we wish each other health, happiness and the best. And it shouldn't be too awkward if we bump into each other. I also won't have to act because I will be genuinely pleased to see her alive.
In a lot of ways she was a Galinda in my life and I was Elphaba. In some ways two unlikely friends, in other ways similar. We were at times ill suited yet also meant to be... and we had to learn how to BE and now we must learn to not.
Sometimes love has to be given away. We hear that all the time. We hear if it comes back to you it was true and if it doesn't it was never yours in the first place. It can be both. Sometimes it doesn't come back because life is tricky but it still was true. We don't own people. We can only love them and cherish the time we have with them. When we start demanding more it can be poisoned. At the same time, expectations, boundaries and growth are part of healthy relationships. Sometimes one or more parties are unwilling to go there...or maybe they do but even with the best of intentions we are actually the stumbling blocks in the way of growth? Whose to say.
Whose to say if I've been changed for the better? ( I do believe I have been changed for the better.) But I have been changed for good. And now, like Elphaba in the broadway play Wicked, I get to exit stage left with my forever Fiyero...and that still equals a happy ending to a new beginning even if we can never go back to Oz.
(Artist Unknown)
For an update I wrote about bumping into her a few weeks later here: https://worldwecreate.blogspot.com/2019/05/executive-functioning-fails-in-language.html
Post Edit: Her song to me was "Because You Loved Me" By Celine Dion and I think that definitely applies to how I did love her and was perfection in it's accuracy:)
I honestly think Green Day's "Time of Your Life" song applied overall...it's almost like the end of High School or some other large part of life when you KNOW things are going to be different, that you have to part even if you are good for each other, because life is demanding more...it is kind of like that:
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