To Love Another Person

Let's set a scene. Perhaps it is late one Friday night and you are with your closest gal pals. Treats of every size and variety are haphazardly scattered across the coffee table. Tears are no stranger and judgement doesn't exist. No? Perhaps you are sitting on your mother's bed, knees tucked up under your chin, your head is resting dejectedly upon your mother's shoulder. Not quite you? Perhaps, instead, you are trying to drown out the noise of your thoughts by the constant pounding of your feet against the cement as you determine yourself strong enough and capable enough to outrun your vulnerability. It may be as simple as driving in the car when the traitor of a radio intrudes with a song that reminds you of what you are trying so desperately to forget. Whatever the scene may be, no matter how long it has been, heartbreak is present.

The well meaning friend, the dutiful mother, even your own mind screams at you to just get over it. But what does "it" mean. Usually "it" takes the form a person, someone you loved. It is well meant advice but this is me confessing - I struggle with this phrase, I don't understand it, and I just don't like it. 

Here is why.

We are told, we allow ourselves to be told, and we often even convince ourselves that by "getting over" someone we will be better, our hearts magically healed. What a tragic idea! I have often said I have trouble letting people go. Recently I have discovered this to be an inaccurate description of my personal healing. I have trouble getting over someone. 

To me there is an ocean of difference between letting someone go and getting over someone. Every relationship is different, each interaction an entirely unique and shared experience between two individuals trying to converge into harmony. Some relationships have been great, some not so great, and some just silly mistakes but each person has stretched me, challenged me, influenced me, or made me reexamine myself to some degree. And if we allow it, each relationship, each person we give ourselves to can help create improved versions of ourselves, that is to say if we allow it to work that way within us. 

I let people go. I understand that it isn't right, or maybe it is right and the timing isn't right, or maybe we just can't seem to make it right together for whatever reason. I honestly want the best for them, and as result of that I still think of them, pray for them, and occasionally "check up" on them (thank you social media) but in no way do I "get over" them. In some circumstances and with some people they may rarely make an appearance in my thoughts beyond the flicker of a memory or emotion and that is okay too. But I ask why do we so earnestly try to forget or erase that part of ourselves? Why do we believe that to heal we must no longer feel? I may have let you go but I will never get over you, for if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be the me I am today. 

I don't need to get over you, replace you, or forget you. The heart's capacity to forgive and to love is infinite and I want to live in such a way that I never limit this capacity to feel, to care, to remember, to move on, or to heal.

As Victor Hugo brilliantly declared in his novel Les Misérables, "To love another person is to see the face of God." 

And that is something you can never get over.

Love always, 

   Christine Marie