Transitions

It's said that life proceeds in cycles.  Like a spiral growing larger as it climbs ever upward, life brings us through the seasons of our lives, distilling wisdom through experience... whether we listen to it or not.

Lately, there seems mounting evidence that my life is, yet again, not only taking on new structures but requesting I leave some of the familiar ones behind.

As much as it just makes plain old common sense that I would be feeling such tensions during a life change such as is involved in joining lives with someone - sometimes it feels like a suspension bridge that's falling apart as I walk across to the other side of a rocky, lush valley.  One by one the planks release and fall away, sometimes in fits and sometimes in giggles.

There seems to be enough steam built up in the process by now that there's really no going back.  And what would be the point in that anyway???  I have no desire to turn back time and regain what seems to be falling away from my life.  Although nostalgia for "the good old times" does tug at my heart strings, overall, I am not about to risk spiritual regression just to taste what I've already tasted before.  Nope.  

With one eye up ahead and the other watching my next step, there's no going back.  And with the planks falling out right behind me, there would be nothing to step back to even if I tried.  Those days are starting to feel like other phases of my past... "lifetimes within lifetimes" I have often called it.  A new "lifetime" has commenced.

Mostly I am speaking about friendships.  But more accurately, I am speaking about a certain degree of modus operandus.  For years everyone has known me as single and a good friend.  I'm the one they call when they need someone to listen, really listen.  And I haven't minded listening all this time.  I really have enjoyed those friendships through the years.  But something is changing on a level that feels organically fundamental to the phase that is now dawning, and it seems to be asking me to, at the very least, reevaluate what's worth continuing to foster and what's best left to see if it survives into the future.

This is my time to shine.  It's also my time to roll up my sleeves and get busy with the sometimes gritty work of polishing my own self.  No one has ever challenged me to be a better person as much as the person I am now uniting my life with.  And yet there is no requirement put upon me that I let anyone go from my focus.  There is simply a clarity gained that helps me see past the reasons I have long held to continue relating with certain folks.  

Until now, being single afforded me the luxury of overlooking poor behaviors in some, as I saw fit.  But now, those same poor behaviors affect more than just me.  And if they cause a strong aversion in my SO, they are worth re-evaluating their merit in my life as well.  That's where my priorities lay, not out of obligation, but instead out of taking cues from someone I admire greatly and looking at each triggered situation with re-opened eyes.

So much else is changing as well.  Why hold on to that which is attempting to drown me?  Not me.  I'm keenly aware that I have my limits and that, usually, I do not ever see the actual point at which I will stand up and say "NO MORE"... but I DO know that when I reach it, it will be plainly obvious.  And when enough of those happen in a relatively short period time, it signals to me that a new phase is dawning and I should be a little bit easier on myself through the process.  *I* matter, too.  And cleaning house is always good every once in a while.  Why not now? :)