Bend, OR
Elevation: 3,623 ft.
23:35

The most formative partnership of my 31 years of life ended on February 22, 2022 the senses of which were branded into my heart and mind through a blur of clenched teeth, the smell of rain, burning eyes, and empty open hands. I left my home in Virginia on May 4, 2022 shaking in the solitude of my truck as I drove through the morning light of my neighborhood crying for my mother and my family. My dear cousin Pat took his own life on May 14, 2022 alone in the Arizona desert far from home and from us. And the person who felt like a part of my own bones and flesh and spirit told me that she had found new love in her new home on May 29, 2022 over text as I stood frozen, wide-eyed and breathless in front of a baker, deaf to his words asking me which of his cakes I had been waiting for.

I drove as far into the high desert as I could, timing my turn around to catch the sunset. Without missing a beat I pulled off onto the side of the road, slammed my door, and opened my trunk - the smell of juniper air filling my lungs. I felt like it was finally time to end what felt like an endless suffering, but instead of emptying my brains onto 20 East - I paused. I thought of Pat. I thought of the desert. I thought of his family and my own pain. I thought about how I would have given anything to be sitting with him out of the back of his big blue van sharing stories, sharing pain, talking about the future. And I thought about Her and Her hands and Her smell and Her voice and I screamed and cried and ripped at my hair, my voice cracking across the dusty desert…and I cried and cried and cried. And then I looked up at the orange sky as the sun began to set behind the sisters, and I celebrated life.

I feel like I have spent most of my remembered life saying goodbye to the things I want to keep. Losses and abandonments laid onto me like heavy chains one after another since I was a child. And with each new goodbye I think I learn lessons, I think I get stronger and better, that surely with a critical restructuring of myself I will not be left again. But it always happens.

And then I lost Her and then I lost Pat and then I nearly lost myself and I realized that things truly needed to change in a way I have never tried before.

Sifting through the co-mingled grief has been painful and exhausting. Learning that I am responsible for my own feelings, my own actions, and my own worth seem straightforward but has been profound. I am not happy about how I treated Her or how I treated myself during our partnership. I mourn and regret my inability to recognize and overcome my old patterns of self-sabotoge and insecurity. I angrily blame the toxic exes that came before Her and the harsh, rigid ways that I was raised by my parents but I know I am wrong. I am responsible for my own life, my own feelings, and my actions that follow.

We are all doing the best we can.

Unlearning. The first step to meaningful change has been to recognize my own insanity and dishonesty to myself. It has been painful and hard and uncomfortable but it has been rewarding. I “protected” myself from being surprise-abandoned by another lover by pushing Her away. By feeding my insecurities, ignoring Her reassurances, and starving Her of my time. By allowing myself to be swallowed into the belly of jealousy I bailed on Her, grew cold, distanced myself with no explanations.

Even during my apology I dove deeply into self-sabotage. I told Her how much of a better fit Her friend was for Her, how seamless they would be, how I could never teach Her how to surf like he could, how different we were and how similar they were, how I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live in a dirty expensive overpopulated Southern Californian city when that same beautiful ocean rests against the shores of the Pacific Northwest’s ancient wild forests. I was rude and an assailant to my own partnership, an assailant to the things that the woman I loved held dear.

For my half of the things that ended us I have taken responsibility and I have grieved. The next step was to understand why I did what I did, and why once again I found myself watching the end credits of the same fucking movie.

A different girl, a different town, same loneliness, same goodbye, same shitty me on my knees begging arms outstretched and empty, but older this time. Old enough to know that I didn’t just lose a partner this time, but that I lost a chance to share a life and a family with a woman I loved deeply.

When I received the news of Pat’s passing it tore open a hole in my healing heart and poured into it the rawest forms of compassion and loss I have ever felt. I cried in the darkness of my room, my tears pouring out heavy and easy, soaking into sheets I haven’t washed since I shared them with Her. I felt raw and exposed and all at once floating in the dark void left by his absence. I reached out to his sister and his parents.

His loss catalyzed in me a serious change. I began to examine the preciousness of life and individuality. The inherent value and worth in each one of us, granted by simply existing. The vastness of forever, and how little of that time is ours. What a miracle it was to even exist at the same time as the ones we love.

I began to let go of Her and us and my painful attachment to our memories.

Most difficult of all was that I began to open and examine the heavy baggage I have been carrying with me into each new life I’ve lived.

Receiving the news that She had found love with the same friend that triggered me to sabotage and tear us apart cut into me like a knife but not in the way it would have the old me. Walking away from that bakery I texted her that I was happy for them and that I wished the best for Her, and I meant it. Thoughts of Pat crashed through my mind, mixing violently with the vivid memories of Her that were pouring out of my freshly re-broken heart. Thoughts of the pain and heartache his family was going through. The way She adored me and held my hand while I drove. There was no anger, there was no jealousy, there was no spite or vindication. I would have gratefully listened to anything she had to tell me because anything the Universe could throw at me would have been better than her being cold and dead and gone.

But ending my own life was a separate thing entirely. At least in that moment. It was something that I felt like I was ready to do for me and on my own terms. There was nothing more that I could do for myself and the people in my life. It was time to cut my losses and wash my hands of my failed attempts at existing in this world with someone I love. What I mistook for self-care and freedom would have been the most profound abandonment of my life and it would have been by my own hands…

My decision to instead celebrate life that day was thanks to Pat and the lessons I had begun to learn from losing him. Telling me that She had found love was not easy for Her to do and it wasn’t something that She owed me at all. She told me out of respect and love. I didn’t realize it as I was driving as fast as I could, but it freed me. It cut the last invisible string attaching us. It bookended a period of deep aimless loss and laid the foundation on which I could finally stand and begin the hard work of lifting myself from my grief.

Losing Her, and Pat, and Her again showed me just how much bigger the picture of my life was. Far bigger than the pain and intensity of my current but temporary reality, far longer than I was allowing it to be.

I am only just beginning the very beginnings of lifting from my grief but I need pause and breath. I want to honor just how much time and work it took to get here. I want to celebrate that I am still here and able to feel the earth between by toes and the sun on my skin. I want to give thanks for the smell of juniper after the rain, and the sound of my mother’s caring voice.

I know that a big part of the work I have before me is finding love and worth in myself, for myself, and by myself. Something that I know will take my lifetime and may never really be achieved. In lifting from my grief and forward into the rest of my life, it will be important for me to carry with me all of the lessons I have learned and am still learning. But also my raw honest feelings. I cannot hope to work through my unresolved abandonment by first starting with abandoning myself. Flawed and damaged as I may be, I am mine and I cannot be left behind.

The baggage will need to be opened and inspected, acknowledged and processed, and then let go.

But that doesn’t mean that I cannot begin my healing gently.

I am lucky to call Bend, OR home for now. I am blessed to share space with its land and to be surrounded by its mountains, trees, lakes, animals, and deserts. I am slowly opening up to its people and have found kindness where I have shared it. I miss the community and family I left in Virginia but I know that sowing kindness, love, and empathy here will nurture amazing things.

I have always taken heed of a phenomenon I call the sacred timing of the Universe. Some would call it coincidence. At the very least, there is something special about the temporal patterns of our lives. I have found my first gentle steps into healing through books. I have poured myself into a life-changing book on abandonment, the desert poetry of Edward Abbey, and the gentle rage of Robin Wall Kimmerer. The latter two of which I have owned and read during very different lives. Yet now they resonate with stronger meaning and intention.

The sacred timing of the Universe is something I am becoming more and more of a believer in. Two pieces of advice given to me by two of my loving friends back in the first months of my break up ring powerfully now.

”Get to know yourself again, and take it slow.”

”Celebrate the beauty of what was, and the beauty of what will be."

I want to live and feel and love deeply. I want to have a rich emotional life and I want to share it with people that are willing to share their lives with me. I never want to treat anyone like I treated Her again. I never want to feel like I did when I lost Her again. I don’t want to continue living in these old patterns of self-sabotage, loneliness, and abandonment. I want to be a better person for myself and for the people I hope to share my long life with.

I want to be free…

I love and miss my family, I love and miss my friends, and I love and miss Her. With my whole heart.

And I love and miss you, Pat. Thank you for saving me. I hope you have found peace.

Chris

Written to my Spotify Playlist: On Loss