In the aftermath of loss as I was attempting to scratch my way blindly to the "Other Side," I found myself asking, “What other side? I don’t see an end to all of this. All I see is pain. I see no end to the loss, no end to the sweet remembering of what was, no end to the relentless self-questioning, 'When did it start? When did the end begin? ”
Then the haunting self reproach, “Where did we go wrong?” and at some quiet point, “Where did I go wrong?” I walked the nights for twenty years in thoughts, in dreams, in questions. Perhaps you walk the streets, the bars, perhaps the net, perhaps the pages of Scripture, perhaps the isles of church …alone and searching with no answers to: "How did I get here?" "How do I move on?'
That is the mystery.
You see, one of the secrets to moving on is for you to understand the mystery that walking the nights is part of the process of moving on--all the aloneness, the process of grieving, of crying, of feeling the pain of the loss, of releasing, of standing on your own two feet, of learning about yourself, of learning about others, of learning about life, about survival, about how to get strong enough within yourself so that you can move on.
Moving away from the painful fracture to the "Other Side" of that pain, seeking to stand again on solid ground, moving on again is a good thing.
Moving on does not mean, however, moving on to another person. That's the kicker. Yet, it's also the key that unlocks the secret--the mystery you don’t want to face, the reality you care not to acknowledge. You see, your moving on must not be to another person: it must be to another place, to the place of wholeness and happiness as an individual apart from another person again, as a Single again.
"You have got to be kidding," you may be muttering, most likely shaking your head: "I’m happiest with another person, when I'm in partnership." I know. I thought like that myself over two decades ago. I have learned the hard way that when you move on to another person before you move on to the place of happiness that you defer your pain and encapsulate your grief from the loss--the grief you desperately do not want to go through and resent having to go through to get to the "Other Side."
Yet grief is the tool that God gives to us help us get to the "Other Side," the place where wholeness and happiness once again reside inside of us.
The reality is that moving on to another person is not moving on at all. Moving on to another person is merely moving around--moving around the pain--moving around the pain of grief, moving around the purpose grief has and must work into your life to make you whole and happy again apart from those in your past that you once loved, apart from another person in your future that you want to love.
By climbing out of that black hole that you are looking outward from and moving on immediately in an attempt to find another person to fill the void of the fracture in your soul, you merely move away the pain, rather than toward it, toward facing it, toward finding wholeness in yourself that you cannot find in another person.
Ultimately, you find yourself in one or a series of going nowhere relationships because you simply circling the fracture: you are going in circles around your pain. You are ultimately going nowhere. You are simply moving around in circles, moving around the pain, afraid of feeling it. You are moving around the pain of grief, only deferring it and ultimately ending up right back where you started--a fractured soul in pain.
When you move on to another place, however, the place of wholeness and happiness as an individual again--as a Single again--you move to a place of healing, wholeness, and strength from which you are, then, ready to choose with wisdom in relationship--a place from which you can then begin to make healthy choices again, and in time, to choose wisely, not poorly.
It all seems obvious to me now. Strange... twenty-one years ago, it didn’t seem obvious to me at all. I am amazed at how when you are in pain that nothing seems obvious.
