Space to Love
The more we think distance, space, and time apart are problems, the more they become problems.
If I trust myself and my loved one to proceed in the direction of truth, love, and understanding, any amount of time and space is a blessed gift.
Trusting them to carry truth and love means that after whatever amount of time and space we have apart, we come back to a connection that is stronger than ever.
I believe, in advance, that this will happen, and that space and distance are actually necessary to allow it.
I believe this in their absence, and I can feel any craving for their attention or presence in a way that is clean and clear and delicious, never deprived or depleted. Readying rather than waiting. I think on what's lovable about them, carrying forward MYSELF in love and understanding.
Trusting the distance to deepen the connection is not a practice which asks, “who is trustworthy?”. Rather, it seeks to become worthy of our own and the other's trust in how we operate during times apart.
I trust distance and time for my own peace in each moment. Trusting distance and time allows ME to move in the direction of love and understanding of the other throughout the time we are apart.
The other choice is to fear distance and time, which fuels fear-based projection stories which tend to personalize or pathologize the other's behavior for not conforming to a tacit desire of mine. This is what it means to use distance and time to move away from love and understanding, the other returns to find that I've used our time apart to backtrack, dismantle, and otherwise challenge what we have built so far and the prospect of further building.
If I return to a connection to find time and space have calcified resentment and animosity, furthered judgmental projection stories, or otherwise created discord in the other's mind and heart toward me, I know that is an unequal relationship—I know that I will be the one to tend and nurture it alone if I choose to engage with it. I know that the other person creates problems given time and space, and I factor that into my choice to continue the relationship. It is a limitation of theirs I might choose to serve.
Personally, I rarely choose to serve this limitation, as it's a practice I don't need practice with, and it would take my time and energy away from people who are ready to play in love as soon as we reunite.
There's nothing wrong with choosing to serve this limitation; for my own sake I don't let it become a resentful tending, a burden the other is placing on me.
My choices are to carry and hold and tend that relationship, accommodate the limitations I know it has and my experience of it, or to release it.
The choice of where and how this person meets me is not mine to make, but there are others who can meet me, if I keep my attention available to see them.