Relationship Atrophy, Healthy Connection
Last night I saw a lover I haven't seen or spoken to largely for 8 months.
We greeted each other in love, offered each other the gifts we had brought for each other, and settled in to a sweet platonic evening, talking each other's ears off and laughing at The Office.
A major topic of conversation was the unique relaxation and safety for both of us in the way our connection was reliable and unbroken, full of love, empty of sharp edges, ready and waiting to be what it will be.
We live 6 hours apart, and at the end of last year our relationship atrophied. He got a full time job where he lives and couldn't visit as often, I was managing health concerns and welcoming my platonic domestic partner into our shared home, and generally our lives commanded our attention.
The atrophy of relationship, however, is NOT the dissolution of connection, unless we decide it is that. Relationship is how we interact. If we are dynamic beings, the only peace is in letting that flow.
We went weeks and months between texting each other, yet never did a text go unanswered or ignored.
The atrophy of our relationship was not a problem for either of us, it was the course of life, and accepting it was the path of peace. Neither of us went to war with it.
And neither of us was advocating for "more."
We were experiencing the reality of all that felt feasible for ourselves and each other in our lives. Whatever pain or grief came of that, we felt, without making it the fault of the other person. We felt it from being on the team of the connection, we felt it as partners, not as enemies. We felt it as desire and fondness, not lack and resentment.
The trouble with the romantic dyad is that we've been sold that it is the paragon of stability, while time and time again romance and chemistry, played out in reality, are fleeting and ephemeral. Reality is showing us that that is not a place of stability, and if we try to make it one, it's no longer that same place of thrill.
If we want to say an enthusiastic YES to this thrilling, ephemeral love, we can do so with a strategy to celebrate it for what it is, and allow its peaceful transition whenever that comes. We can celebrate the fleeting loves, so long as we source our stability elsewhere.
