This is only a moment

Endings and beginnings.

Beginnings and endings.

There is none without the other. One without none. None without one. There is only One.

There are always beginnings and endings. Mixings and matchings. Mergings and meldings. Innings and outings to create the beginning that never ends except in Love.

In one of Stewart McLean's Vinyl Cafe stories, he quotes a character, a fortune-teller, as telling young Sam when he asks what should he do if he doesn't like the way an event in his life ended, that, it's not over if it doesn't end well. Everything always ends well, she says. It's the law of the universe.

Sometimes, we just have to wait a little longer to find the ending that fits into the beginning to give us our good ending to a new beginning.

Perhaps it is true of relationships. We can't see that this 'ending' is the wellness of it all making room for the ending that fits the new beginning. This place that hurts. This smelly, cluttered, strewn with prickly burrs and fraught with soft spots that ache beneath the touch is actually, the good part waiting for the ending that fits well. It is the heart softening. The aches and pains of endings quickening into time passing into the next moment to become the old only to become new again.

In our angst over what is lost, over what is left undone, unsaid, unfinished, unsettled, we forget that everything ends well. It is the law of the universe. We just have to wait a little longer for the part where the 'it ends well fits' right into the part where it ends well.

Alls well that ends well.

Especially in love.

Because, love never ends. It can't. Love is infinite. It is our ability to sustain being loving. To keep love flowing between two lovers that comes to an end and puts an end to the story of love between two people.

I imagine an old fashioned telegram.

Love died today. Full Stop.

Send reinforcements. Full Stop.

And then, the time for reinforcements ends and all that is left is to begin tidying up, moving over and under and into the cleaning up of what is left of the love between two people. But never the ending of love. Love doesn't die.

I told my eldest daughter yesterday afternoon as we talked about the end of my relationship with this man whom I love but will no longer be loving in the active tense. The tenseness of what has come to pass has ended our passing through this time together, "This too shall pass."

She replied, "I prefer, 'This is only a moment.'"

"Did you write that?" I asked.

She smiled. "No. I heard it on Oprah." She paused. "You know mom. Everything worth saying is on Oprah."

Joan Didion didn't say it on Oprah but it's worth saying none-the-less, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."

There's a story I can't tell anymore that I've lived on and with and inside and outside and within for awhile. It's a story that gave me a different life. I liked it. I didn't like all parts of it. That's the story of a relationship. Finding the good to overlook the not so good. Finding the parts that fit to create a good end to every day fitting together no matter the not so good parts in the day.

I struggled for some time to find my fit in this story. I struggled against the growth of being part of this story where I became half of a whole while still struggling to remain whole in my whole life.

Ultimately, it is in relationship where I grow the most. Stretch the most. Claim the most of me. Relationship shines a light on those parts I never see when just communing with me. Those parts where I do not bother to go or explore or venture into when travelling alone with just me. I don't need those parts with me when I go alone. Alone I get along with me. No problem. I like me. I like being alone. When I am alone, I am one.

In my together story, I must balance me with him. Me with us. Me with together forever.

Forever is a long long time.

I got me babe. Forever.

You've got you, babe. Forever.

It's you and me together that don't got no more. Forever.

Ah, but, he says. I believe we are meant to be together. I just need to go this part alone.

For how long?

Until I know.

Know what?

When I get there.

Ah. You can't have me both ways. I'm in it. Or I'm not. Included. Excluded.

I'm not.

In-cluded.

I'm out.

Outside looking in.

Inside looking out.

No matter where I look at it, I am part of my story continuing on. Just whole in a whole other way.

This part of the story that has ended? It's just a story where I create the ending -- my choice. Good ending. Bad ending. I determine the fit. Good. Bad. This part of the story that is now done? This part where I was part of a couple. A his and her matched set of towels. The other half of a whole relationship. The never needing a date for those special occassions because I've got you and you've got me, babe. The half of a whole lot of something I thought I knew but forgot what it was until I couldn't put it all back together again. The whole of my 100% I put into the story I told myself in order to live in the relationship regardless of whether I was feeling a 1 or a 2 or a seven or a ten. I did my best. And now it's done.

I'm done.

With this part.

But never the whole.

In the end, what was wholely a relationship became two parts. Perhaps, it never was one whole part and always two parts looking for the fit to create an ending to being alone. Perhaps, it had too many holes. Or perhaps we didn't treat it holy enough. Regardless of its holes or how whole it was or wasn't, now 'it' is over.

This too shall pass.

A story has ended. A new story begun. Both parts of the story fit together. There is no ending of my part. Just the his and her part. My part now continues with me whole again, alone. One.

This new part of the whole story of my life is about me moving on. Moving beyond. Moving into another story I tell about my life. The story today is filled with the sadness and the sorrow of breaking apart.

A broken heart is an open heart and an open heart is a loving heart. It is one with Love.

Tomorrow's story will be different. Tomorrow's story is not yet written.

For today. It is New Year's Eve. I'm fighting the flu and the ennui of a relationship that couldn't survive year's end. Or perhaps, the flu part is just a bit part in this feeling of sadness, of being overrun, overwhelmed, over-tired.

I'm facing an ending I've avoided for awhile with trying to remain calm and patient. In that place where I am without expectation.

Recently I told him, "I quit". I quit trying to fix you. Force you to open up. I quit trying to breach your walls. I quit trying to let you in. Or keep you out. I am choosing instead to just be. To be in this moment. In this relationship the way it is.

The moment passed and I returned to trying.

Too hard. Too much. Too little. Not enough.

I returned to trying and forgot about the moment.

And now, this too shall pass.

This is only a moment.

And my life is filled with too many glorious moments to be overshadowed by only this moment. For this moment I shall feel the sadness and be at One with Love. In my whole life there are too many moments of joy to sink my teeth into any story that doesn't end well.