Move on like a UHaul--the most painful thing.

Today, I am re-picturing a beautiful late summer afternoon at 31st street beach. N and I were talking about heartache and brokenness as we speed walked on the pavement just passed the Field House and toward the monument for fallen firemen.

I told her that part of me was afraid to STOP HURTING. I have only loved one person, and that person damaged my heart. Well, I've only loved one person who had the courage to tell me he loved me back and actually made a move on it. I loved someone else who played an interesting "c'mon, guess that I like you" game with me (Nothing came of that). I told her that the pain I felt almost suspended his memory and kept part of him with me. When I asked if something about that was weird and dysfunctional, she told me that she was actually reading a book in which the psychologist described the phenomenon of "nursing and guarding the pain" as a mechanism to still hold onto the person who has left your life or betrayed you or abused you, etc.

I understand why a person wants to cling to that last bit of pain now. When it vanishes, that person is gone. You think about them less. You don't wonder what he or she is doing. You don't care who they spend their time with. YOu don't wonder who they hug or see movies with or share dinners with. They seep out of your frontal lobe and amygdala very slowly and gradually, and then suddenly, "Poof! They're gone".

I never thought I'd see that day of fully "moving on". Partially, because I don't believe in "moving on". I will NEVER embrace our culture of "loving and leaving", rampant and careless coupling and uncoupling, divorcing because...well, just because. This doesn't mean that these things won't ever happen to me. Two of my favorite people have been divorced within the last few years--two of the most loyal and beautiful people you'd ever meet. They also rebel against this culture of casual coupling. They are commitmentphiles, but things happen to people that are beyond their control.

Back to my main point, "moving on". It's so sad. It leaves you wondering, "Then, what was that? What did I really feel? What did we really have?" Or maybe "moving on" is just amazing DIVINE GRACE to be open and ready for someone who wants to mutually and reciprically love.

To my sistergirls who are in that process of "moving on"--hold on, be ready, it'll come, you'll heal, and then you'll wonder how that person who didn't value your heart ever had your heart.