Leaf with heart shape cut out of it against cloudy sky - An unconditional goodbye

AN UNCONDITIONAL GOODBYE: A relationship ends, but mindful awareness remains

Last updated: April 9th, 2019

I have you here with me in my mind
And I’m loving every thought about you.
I see your picture in my mind and feel
An open heart where love flows.

And I want you to know
That this love for you runs deep.
And I want you to see
That I’m complete.

And when I see your smile, I smile.
And when I hear your voice
And when I see your face
And when you walk by
I weep, I weep, it’s joy, it’s joy.

And I feel this love expanding to always more.
There’s always more to find, more to see
And it never ceases to amaze
How much love there is, how much love there can be.

The love flows out of me
And I love you.
The love returns back home
And I love me.

And you should know
That I’m happy to have you here
In my mind, whenever I think of you.
And I’d like you to know
That I’ve come to love my thoughts
When they’re all about you.

So go wherever you go
And do whatever you do
And love whomever you love.
Love them with your open heart.
And if it feels right for you,
Never see me again.

No matter where you are, I love you
And no matter what you do, I love me.
No matter who you’re with, I love
Because no matter how it is
Love is always here.
With me, with you, with us.

An unconditional goodbye (as it happened)

Oh my god
Woman and man having conversation in the pouring rain - An unconditional goodbyeSaying goodbye to you.
Now this is suffering, this is pain
Like death.

I’m buried alive
Trapped in my coffin with no way out.
What a terrible way for me to meet myself,
In this pit of despair, of hopeless pointlessness.

My mother died and I cried.
Yet my grief, my devastation and deep loss were a comfort somehow.
You were there as I felt my sadness and my love for her
And through my sobs something released, and it was OK.

You left me
Or did I leave you?
Yes, it was me, I left you
And then you really left me.

It took some time before I realized
You were gone
Forever
With no way back.

Now I had my perfect storm.
This was worse than my mother dying
No question about that
Not caring if I live or die.

F*ck spirituality.
I was open and unconditionally accepting
Of myself, of you and whatever life gave me.
And f*cking life gives me losing you.
No, not that.

Let a rat eat my face.
Give me an incurable disease.
Take away my mind.
Kill me, boil me alive
Anything but that.

Don’t take yourself away from me.
Don’t shut your bank-vault door
Where I have no chance of ever getting in
And hearing your innermost thoughts again
Of being so important to you.
Oh, how I loved that.

I was in the moment
Waiting for a future
When you fell in love with me
When we completed my fairy tale.

You were my perfect woman
Everything my imagined, unconditional self could ever want.
A woman with all my projections of perfection
Imposed, branded, onto you.

You let me see you.
You were everything I could ever ask for
Including a someone who could never and would never love me.
Yet you did love me, but didn’t want me in that way
My perfect woman.

Someone who called me five times a day.
Someone whom I waited for and followed
And did the things you wanted me to do for you.
Willing and available
How I loved being that
Right up until the moment I didn’t.

I convinced myself that I didn’t want anything from you
When I wanted everything from you.
I wanted you to be all I was looking for,
The One, and of course you were
Exactly what I needed
As I uncovered and unravelled.

I followed you like a puppy dog
An unselfish servant all for you.
It was all as I wanted it to be
Following my “yes” into trouble
A place where I needed to go.

Sitting in your house waiting for your return
Loving you as you walked through the door.
How you needed me
And how I needed you to need me.
Oh, how I needed that.

I was worth something to you
And that was more than I was ever worth to me.
I needed you to depend on me, desperately.
It was life and death for me.

I focused on being in the moment
And unconditionally available
As I tried to make it inconceivable
For you to contemplate leaving me.

My obsession with you
And your dependency on me,
Let’s call that dysfunctional.
Oh, how I loved how we were.

But, of course, it was never going to last
Not an unconditional me
Living in your bubble
And losing myself.

So, you leave, and I’m with my pain of rejection.
Now, I really don’t care about me.
No more spirituality, unconditional awareness or in-the-moment stuff.
That didn’t work out.

Now I can go back to not caring about myself again
And grow fat and smoke and isolate
Be the way I used to be
My normal unhappy me.

My unconditional self
Gave me the perfect partner
Someone who didn’t love me in the way I imagined it
Exactly what I wanted and needed.

Through you I met the “me” that I am.
I could see myself
All that I am
And now I know.

You stood on the other side of me
And in your reflection I saw me.
You showed me me
Or was that me showing me me?

Man meditating on sunny day, in snow - An unconditional goodbye

An unconditional goodbye (as it is now)

Who was I back then?
Someone who loved you and neglected me.
Now, sometimes, I can find the place where I love me
A place where I can never say I don’t love you.

I can’t say I want you back in my life.
I can’t say I want you to stay away.
I can’t say.
It is like it is.

You went away, but something stayed.
This moment is still now
And whenever I look
An inner calm is always here.

It hasn’t all turned out wonderfully well.
I didn’t want mindful awareness
I wanted you.
And even through I never wanted it
I still don’t know what it is to look and not be able to find
The stillness within that’s always here.

You showed me that I wasn’t all unconditional awareness
That there was still a “me” here wanting.
I found myself not to be the unconditional self I thought I was.
I was yet another created identify, a fiction of my mind.

A “me” is only interested in what it can get
And the final thing a “me” can get from mindful awareness
Is the realization that it doesn’t actually exist,
That there is no “me,”
That the “me” is just thought and thought is not me.

I’m not ready to believe that.
That would be the death of the “me,”
A death of something that never existed anyway.
No, I don’t want that.

Yet, every day, awareness seems to notice me
Or is that me noticing it?
Or are we noticing each other,
Noticing that there’s only one of us?

Noticing that the one who notices
And the one who’s noticed
Are the same one
Something noticing itself.

When I lost you, I tried to lose all that mindful awareness stuff
Because I wanted you more than I wanted that.
Mindful awareness didn’t give me what I wanted;
It didn’t bloody work.

But it’s still here.
Unconditional.
Watching.
Noticing.
Accepting.
Anything and everything,

It was here as my story of you unfolded.
It was here when we ended.
It’s here as my mind continues to believe what it believes.
It’s here now.

Maybe we have no control over whether we’re in hell or in paradise
Or somewhere in between.
Maybe instead of trying to escape one place
Or trying to get into another
Instead of trying to leave or trying to stay
We just need to stop and simply notice where we are and how it is.

As the story of me goes on without you
I’m always here
Wherever I happen to be.
It’s always now.

Really, that’s all there is.
That’s everything
A timeless space
Where anything can happen.

I can believe my thoughts
Or see them for what they really are.
I can see the “wanting me”
And I love the “me” that wanted you.

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image 1: Pexels; image 2: Dom Crossley (Creative Commons BY-ND); image 3: Petteri Sulonen (Creative Commons BY)