Do I Have to Let You Go?

If I have to let you go

I need to do it all at once

I cannot take the bandage off a little at a time

I must take one mighty rip

And expose the tender pulsating flesh of the wound.

Bright red and hurting. Aching and oozing.

And then I must look at it and

See

All the things you meant to me.

All the ways I loved you.

I loved to look at you, to see your precious face.

I loved to hear your voice, singing to my ears.

I loved to touch your hard and calloused skin, your flexing muscles.

I love the way my soul responded to your soul, and the way your soul responded to mine.

But

I must look at those things and let them go.

Let those things  fade away: first into memories and then away into nothingness.

And soon it will all be healed

A long and twisting scar

When I look at it some day, I will tell myself.

Once upon a time

I loved

I loved so deeply that it hurt.

I loved so deeply that I let you go.

Gwendolyn Villebrun

Your heart has been broken again .Inside your chest it throbs and your only wish is to get away from yourself. You run here and you go there but you cannot escape yourself or the pain. The pain is incessant. You try to distract yourself. You try to talk to others so that you cannot feel it. You walk around looking at things, but you cannot see because you are blinded by the pain. Pain is all consuming,eating your heart away until you want to disappear. You want to cry but you can’t cry because your tear ducts are swollen shut from crying too many tears already. You long for relief. Why cant I let this go you ask! Why can’t you let me go? Why does it hurt so much? You have no answers and the questions keep coming, Is there something I could’ve done? You try to place blame thinking you can move the pain away. It was their fault they hurt me. They hurt me intentionally. Inside yourself you know it was your own fault. You gave too much to someone who could not accept what you had to give. You gave your love, but it bounced back unaccepted and then you hurt yourself by believing that it was your fault, by thinking that you did something wrong. Relentlessly the pain goes on. You pray for relief. You look for places to run to escape and hide; you push it down inside but it keeps popping up and breaking you again. You consider options to help numb it . You know inside yourself if you numb the pain, it will only come later again. Inside yourself, you scream; in your thoughts you cover a thousand miles of what if and what could and what should and how is it not the way I want it?You know it is your dreams that brought you down your internal fantasies. You know it is your feelings that drive this stake through your heart, and you curse your feelings and you curse the one that broke your heart and you curse the pain. You remain in this place for a long time. Forever. You are broken. Your heart is frozen, but a glimmer comes. A thaw. A melting. I did this.I did this to myself : no one did it to me, I hurt myself with my expectations and my need to have what I wanted. I can let it go. I can surrender to the pain and I can feel the intensity of the love that I gave. I can feel the intensity of that love for myself. I can take it back in-and I can love myself. In the loving of myself the pain evaporates. In letting go of the pain the pain lets go of me. I can open my heart to love again.

Your heart starts pounding. You feel a little sweaty. The thoughts start rolling around in your head. You feel like you are about to step off the precipice. You like staying in control but this is monumental jumping off the cliff into the unknown. And you don’t feel the safety of holding the wheel that steers your life.
But. We take risks everyday —-starting a new job, repairing a broken relationship, driving on the highway, moving to a new home, telling someone you love them.We take risks tasting that carton of milk that may be sour, trying on those old jeans that are a little too tight, Even choosing which program to watch on tv involves a risk.

So why do some of these risks stop your heart?

Fear.

The thoughts you create in your mind . The stories you tell yourself. The what ifs that you make up. The story that you are not good enough.

The truth. We are not small. We are more than good enough. We have more than enough bravery to take the risk. If it doesn’t work guess what? There is always another one! Don’t let the negative thoughts stop you. Choose love thoughts instead. You have one life to live and now is the time to let your inner soul shine. Choose to love yourself! Take a risk on you. That pounding heart ? It isn’t fear- it’s excitement. Step back world you are showing up!

There are long goodbyes and short goodbyes.
Short goodbyes are like a trip to the store or a day at work. In short goodbyes the person travels with you in your mind. You create commentary to tell them later. You plan for them -I will buy this jam, its their favourite. You make plans for the two of you together. You phone them midday to check how they are.

Long goodbyes are putting the jam in the cart and realizing they are not there to eat it. Long goodbyes are dialing the phone only to hear: this number is no longer in service. Long goodbyes are conversations in your head and knowing there is no-one to tell.

Short goodbyes are goodnight: have a good sleep we will talk in the morning. Long goodbyes are waking up alone.

Short goodbyes are how are you? i missed you. Tell me all about it.

Long goodbyes are: I miss you. There are so many things I want to tell you. Long goodbyes are conversations we will never have.

Short goodbyes are : I am sorry we were fighting.I didn’t mean to hurt you. Forgive me.

Long goodbyes are: I am sorry. I am sorry I cannot tell you how much you mean to me. Forgive me.

Short goodbyes are anticipated reunions. Long goodbyes are reunions we will never have.

Short goodbyes are punctuated with happy hellos.Long goodbyes are non ending silence.

Short goodbyes are hugs and holding on tightly. Long goodbyes are letting go and letting go and letting go, over and over.

Short goodbyes end. Long goodbyes never do.

Gwendolyn Villebrun

The temperature has dropped to minus 40. The world is frozen. Nothing is moving. Everything is hunkered down in an attempt to stay warm. The world is clothed in white hoar frost and in the silence of the cold you can hear each sound. All sounds sound magnified, larger, intensified. Like the sound, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, the mind begins to amplify its thoughts. Unoccupied and waiting it begins to create storyboards on the white canvas. It crucifies you with what ifs,,if onlys, what I could have done, what I should have done, It amplifies regrets, casting old memories that have been beneath the frozen snow onto the mind landscape. Coloured memories with deep dark feelings you relive as if they were in the here and now. Intense pain that you have forgotten and pushed into some storage vault. The cold is relentless and so is the mind. You are praying for release from the cold and a return to warmth, release from the mind stories and a return to the busyness that keeps you out of this mind space .

Praying. The mind brings you another thought. The cold will not last. This will end. The snow will melt and the world will thaw and life resume as it was. Perhaps this was a gift. A time to stop, a time to remember and a time to release all that stored pain. The mind tells you that you are okay. You made it through.Now it is time to thaw.
The temperature is rising. You are no longer frozen.

We have travelled through epochs together. We have held hands supporting each other, carrying each other through trial after trial. Loving fiercely and surely like twin flames. Two people made of separate threads woven together with stories of pain and heartbreak, love and longing, joy and delight. Known each other through depths of intimacy, alive together in every shared experience, shining lights in the darkness for each other, encouraging each other to grow. Grow.Grow. But for now we have grown together as much as we can. We have known each other like no other. We have loved each other like no other.

We have fought each other, honing each other on the rough interior of life, like sand grit rasping on rough edges, changing each other into pearls. We have stuck together like glue unable to let the other go.

Let the other go.

For surely when that happens it would be like tearing the veins of our hearts, chasms ripping with unbearable pain. It will be like dying, letting go of each other, knowing that we cannot be together again. It will be like trying to draw breath into lungs that can no longer can hold air. All that will be left is a black void shaped like our shapes ,cemented with heartache and loneliness.

But darling we must. We must say goodbye, We must release the cords that bind us, cutting swiftly with a sharp knife. Letting go of all that was, opening space for what is to come.

Do not look back for if we do, we will not be able to leave.

Let me go and i will let you go. Keep only the love, the unending eternal love.

Goodbye my sweetest of hearts .

Gwendolyn Villebrun

I see your facade , the self you choose to show me, the self you construct to present to me hoping that i will like you and that I will accept as you. You carve yourself to fit into my space watchful that you do the things I like and to be the person that you think I want and need. i see you losing the you of you to be the one for me and for all the others. You blend in like a chameleon changing colors, shapes and sizes to ensure that you fit. I see you mold yourself to others expectations all the while letting pieces of yourself go until you do not even remember who you were before we came.
I see your own beautiful true self . A shining sparkle of gold hidden under all your self imposed disguises. it is time dear love to come out , to drop the reflected vision of others, to look into the mirror and reveal yourself. I know you are afraid of losing your created selves, afraid to lose the you that you spent so much time trying to be. But know and trust that the inner you has so much potential, so much beauty and that the only one you need to please is you. Stand in awe of yourself. Like a flower blossoming you have reached the place where you can reveal your glorious self to everyone . Welcome back home.

Gwendolyn Villebrun

The years pass by in a blur. Moment to moment turns into day to day and day to day turns into year after year. In the passing of time we set aside pieces of ourselves in favour of routine, busyness, the demands of work, the needs of other people. One day you look into the mirror and say who are you? I barely know you. You look similar to someone I used to know but older, tired, and disappointed.Where is the passion? Where is the spark that used to light up your eyes.?You feel your heart has closed. A little hope rises somewhere in there…it is time. You have abandoned yourself too long! You can feel the phoenix starting to rise. You smile to yourself. I claim my spirt back. You don’t know where you are going yet but you feel yourself on the way! January 1 the beginning of the year. Hello self. It is so good to see you again! i missed you but I promise to stick with you now!! Take my hand. Lets go!

In the craggy rocks beside the flower bed, tiny little jumping jacks and violets poke their miniscule little stems out of the gravelly soil. So delicate looking and frail as if one breath of air could blow them down. Yet there they stand, testament to overcoming winds, hail and heavy rains; unperturbed in spreading their glory for those to see who are prepared to look beyond the showy garden flowers inches away. Those flowers bloom in groups – bright pinks and whites sheltered together against the weather- holding each other up saying look at me. How beautiful I am. We claim this space.
The tiny flowers do not proclaim their delicate beauty, they do not demand that anyone look at them or even notice that they are there.
And yet they are speaking a message for all to hear. “You can thrive in rough conditions, you can survive in difficult conditions, you can grow in difficult conditions. You can withstand the tempests to reveal the beauty that lies only within you.” There are no requirements for you to be noticed or to depend on others for support. Your beauty stands alone. This is a relationship between you and the Divine. The Divine will support you wherever you are. It is enough that you are alive, that you are blooming, that you are appearing in the world as you. Independent and strong, yet supported and nurtured and as with all things divine- loved exactly as you are.

The cycle of winter is slowly leaving us this year. It still likes to provide us with parting shots- a little snow a little sleet, frost on the ground cool crisp air and some colder days. But we look forward to winter moving on and being replaced by spring weather, spring birds returning and hints of the green grass and trees that are yet to come. We might talk about the temperatures of the winter or the amount of snow that fell but we really do want to move on and experiences the delights of spring. This should be the way of our emotional experiences, but some seem unable to let go and nurture past moments of darkness and hurt and pain. Rather than look for the evidence of spring and the great thaw, evidence that the past has left us, they instead hold on to the suffering of their winter and relive it.
We are designed to move on- in doing so we grow and develop our own new shoots of green. The old dies away to be replaced by something fresh but unless we let go of focus on the winter scarring, we will fail to notice how we have grown, how we have become more than what we were and the beauty that we are now.

Gwendolyn Villebrun