Through the Shadow of Fading Love, There is Brightness to Light the Way
When polyamorous relationships end, grieving brings the fascinating feeling of being held and being let go all at once
The day after she dumped me, I locked my keys in the car for the first time in over 10 years.
I always double check that my keys are in my hand before I close the door, but I guess always doesn’t apply when you’ve just spent your 15 minute break crying in your car in the rain.
I’m caught off guard by the weighty blanket of my sadness, left to surrender to bouts of on-and-off weeping for the 12, 24, 36 hours after I woke up to her message. I cry in my car, on the couch, in the bathroom at work, on a bench at my favorite edge of the bay in the sunshine. Yes, yes, I love her. Yes, yes, I miss her. Of course. But also, her rejection piles on like the princess and the pea, one more body on top of piles of mattresses filled with the glares and dismissals of people who said they cared and then decided they were done with me.
I desperately want her to take it back. Give me a chance to have a conversation instead of unilaterally deciding that we were no longer a good fit. One more message, one more apology, one more time where I feel seen and loved by her, to be assured that she cared. All the words I wish I could say lump together in my throat, pushing hot tears just to the edges of my eyes, and while I manage not to let them fall, I am perpetually sniffly and primed for when I can finally let go.
I thought this would last longer. I thought we were on the same page. I thought she wanted me like I want her. I thought, I thought, I thought, I felt, I fell…
I was opened, a steampunk mechanical heart whirring and clicking to reveal this dazzling light I didn’t know I was carrying.
I am loyal and fall fierce and fast, in love with my best friend, my job, my passions, my lovers, I no longer apologize for the capacity of my heart. My heels over my head, I tumbled headlong into her arms, her smile, the sparks from her eyes lighting something new and exciting and soft and hot and absolutely lovely in me. I was opened, a steampunk mechanical heart whirring and clicking to reveal this dazzling light I didn’t know I was carrying.
I had plans and poems, one day I will read this to her, one day I will complete this art she inspired, one day we will hold each other all afternoon, one day we will wake up in each other’s arms. I see dogs at the park and want to text her. I see a beautiful piece of street art and I want to send her a picture. Everywhere I look, she’s there, ambient and distant.
Instead, I read her text over and over, picking at the scab of 77 words unraveling our timeline. I can’t stop looking and I don’t know if I’m trying to understand it or just trying to desensitize myself to it or willing it to reveal a different meaning or hoping she can feel my eyes through miles of invisible transmission.
I want her to take it back. But if she did, how would it fix anything? My bruised but trusting heart, nestled in her hands, would be wary and scared and still sad because I thought she knew me and I’ve been here before and it is hard to imagine. Because once someone makes it clear that I’m not worth it, I don’t know how to come back from that. It’s all damage control, trying to mitigate the opening of my deepest wound as it is pulled open again.
I want her to take it back.
And if she called me right now I’d go.
And it would maybe be a mistake, the worst kind of bad idea.
But I would make it.
Shadows in my eyes blur the lines between the one paragraph I have to over-analyze and the story I thought we were writing together. I have always had a hard time letting go, I still dream about the best friend who dumped me between 8th & 9th grade leaving me only with confusion. My blood cells are alphabet soup, but it was so good. Time passes, thick and viscous, a million questions bubble and roil inside me.
Am I ignorant? Am I dirty? Am I stupid? Am I careless? Am I a thief and a bully? Am I misremembering? Am I wrong? Am I a bad wife/girlfriend/mother/employee? Am I a terrible person? Am I a bad daughter? Am I messing everything up for everyone? Am I even a good person? Am I worth loving? Am I ever going to be enough for someone to want to stay?
Despite it all, I am mystified by the overwhelming sense that the good is worth the bad.
Some questions spring up new, unraveling like the spring blossoms whose unfurling have given me a breath of hope, now knocked from my lungs. Others have been snared in the folds of my brain since I was 5 years old, or maybe since I was born, or maybe since I was 5 cells floating in a liminal space between being and not being. I carry these questions, staticky dustbunnies of doubt, and the detritus from the last time my heart was broken and the time before that and the time before that. They hibernate, waking only at the call of a new question that I’ll never have the answer to.
My poet friend, one of the first people I told that I thought I was queer enough to say it out loud, sends me a cartoon about the simultaneous existence of despair and happiness. What complex beings we are. Despite it all, I am mystified by the overwhelming sense that the good is worth the bad.
The day after she dumped me, I locked my keys in my car for the first time in over 10 years.
And someone who loves me enough to be the keeper of my spare comes and lets me in.
And someone who loves me enough to trust me takes his first Uber home from school because I’m stranded.
And someone who loves me enough to call me a sweet spot in their life tells me that they are grateful for me, and sees me in that way I most deeply desire, reminding me your heart is bursting with both love and trauma. It’s good to cry and it helps to do it where it’s pretty.
And someone who loves me enough to ride or die support me even when they think my life’s a little bonkers stands in the rain with me and commiserates and tells me it’s going to be okay.
And someone who loves me enough to give me the best hugs known to mankind holds me, and says everything without saying anything, and then later says everything again with trademark eloquent words.
And someone who loves me enough to invite me in to their family lets me participate in the joy of their birthday.
And someone who loves me enough to sit on my lap for hours and tell me about everything they know wraps their little body around me and their dimples pop and it all soothes the hurt enough that I stop crying for a while.
And I am so sad that I can’t stop thinking about how sad I am, and my heart is broken, and I’m not hungry, and I stay up too late, but through it all there’s a flickering relief comprised of immense gratitude. For the partners I still have and the people who care about me, who reach out to me, who help me stand when my knees buckle. For her contribution to my growth and my ability to let go of boxes and boundaries. For the wonder I felt when I was with her. For gentle souls who barely know me but tell me that it’s okay to be where I’m at. For my capacity to love.
I find that even right now, even when I am grieving and I don’t know where things went wrong, I still know that love is always worth it, and time will ease the painful part.
And it’s very weird to be experiencing something but also in awe of the gears turning behind it. Emotionally, I don’t feel okay, and when I cry I feel like I might never stop. But I also see the difference in real time, how this is different than losses past, how I am more equipped, how I have grown and changed. I find that even right now, even when I am grieving and I don’t know where things went wrong, I still know that love is always worth it, and time will ease the painful part. The worst thing I can imagine is my heart closing up again, and I won’t let that happen.
Leaving monogamy to other people isn’t always the easiest thing, but I find that in the midst of reading and re-reading words I don’t understand about how I fucked it up, my other partners are there. They hold me and joke with me and defend me and prickle at the thought of my pain. They soothe my longing for a different outcome. And it’s right there — the truth that I have an immense supply of love in my life, and that more connection doesn’t mean more hurt, it means that when hurt comes, there’s a soft place to land.
During one rough patch, my partner told me “I hope you know everything is going to be okay. You’re too surrounded by love for it not to be.” And even though there’s a shadowy spot where love is fading, the brightness of what’s left helps me see the way forward.