I've been thinking a lot about letting go over the last couple of weeks. My dear partner and I decided to go our separate ways after 14 years of the most loving, unconditional, emotionally honest, and supportive relationship I've ever known. We've both opened up and healed in so many ways together and hold a deep respect and gratitude for what has felt truly mutual and mostly wonderful. At the same time, we find ourselves drawn towards different futures, wanting different things from a partner, and needing different things at this juncture in each of our lives (some of which feels linked to our significant age gap). So, as you can probably imagine, I've been struggling to let go.

What does it even mean to let go of our partnership when it's likely we'll still be supportive friends present in one anothers' lives? Am I really willing to let go of something that has been so wonderful and healing, such a gift in so many ways? And if I do let go is there any way to do this with grace and respect while grieving the significance of what's being lost?

I don't have an easy answer to these questions at the moment. Mostly I've just been feeling a lot of sadness in coming to terms with our decision to allow our relationship to become a friendship. But this process has also gotten me thinking about my own patterns around letting go (or struggling to let go, more accurately). I want to take some space to reflect on that here.

Years ago I wrote a poem about a rock climb I did with some friends that's all about letting go. It was a tough climb with a crux that no one in our group had yet been able to pull through. So, when I took my shot at the climb I hoped I'd be able to find a way through this challenging spot on the climb. But I wasn't the strongest climber in the group. And I hadn't been climbing much recently. So when I reached the crux, which was nothing more than an open-handed ledge with shoddy footholds, I realized almost immediately I wasn't going to be able to make the needed move.

This didn't stop me from holding on and refusing to let go.

Palms sweaty, my hands slipped little by little off the open-handed hold they were pressed against. Quickly my forearms pumped out, burning with fatigue. As they did, I slapped my hands further up on the shitty hold then watched as they slowly made their way nearer the edge. I couldn't maintain a solid grasp. Breath shallow and fast, my forearms had become fire, seering and surging with heat and pain. Still I wouldn't let go.

My toes, crammed into tight climbing shoes, balanced on a pin prick of a foothold as my leg slowly began quivering then shaking wildly. Unable to go up, I also couldn't go down. The only option is letting go. And I know it. But I won't do it. ABSOLUTELY NOT!

To be fair, I am a good 10 feet above the last bolt. On lead, which climbers also call the sharp end of the rope. When I fall (and it's clearly only a matter of time until I do), I have a good 10-15 feet before the rope will catch me. And while I'm high above the ground, meaning there's no risk of a ground fall, I'm not in love with knowing this is what will happen if I let go. So I cling some more. Harder. Shaking and slipping and sweating and forcing my muscles to keep me in place as long as they possibly can.

But eventually, I cannot force myself to cling to that rock wall any longer.

I slip, free falling into the air. Is this the same as letting go? It doesn't really seem like it. But it has the same outcome. A quick free fall. A loud scream. A second or two in the air. Then a laugh and sigh of relief when the rope finally catches me. Then my climbing partner lowers me to the ground.

Thinking back on this whole experience I wonder what it would be like to actually choose to let go instead of hang on as long and hard and frantically as possible, exhausting every part of my body in the process? I think it could have been a bit less painful. But it would also require me to find a way through my brain's resistance. It would rather stay attached to the impossible hold I was clinging to than risk a free fall. The familiar is always more compelling to our brain and its resistance than the new. So, clinging for dear life was a better option to my brain than the alternative.

Since this climb, which was nearly 12 years ago now, I've had more practice with letting go. One of the gifts of a loving relationship that has always been more about love from a place of freedom than attachment and security is that I've gotten to practice letting go over and over again: Letting go of my plans for how our life together should be, old patterns of insecurity that interfered with us doing what we loved, and fixed perceptions of my partner that kept our relationship small.

Despite much practice with letting go, though, it's easy to cling at the moment. Which is why I'm realizing letting go is more of a practice than something we learn to do once and for all. We'll probably get to practice letting go until the day we die. Which means that any time we notice ourselves clinging, we can inquire into what's inside of us that makes it hard to let go. On the climb it was the fear of a free fall. And in my life right now, it's fear of being alone, wobbly feelings around financial security without someone else to lean on, and uncertainty around where I'll live after years of enjoying our beautiful home in Bellingham.

Then again, being unwilling to let go creates a lot of suffering and exhaustion. Something I didn't expect in this whole process of letting go was that when we both finally decided it was time a wave of relief and energy came up in me out of the blue. I was no longer focusing all of my energy on keeping sweaty palms on open-handed, impossible holds. Which freed up my energy!

In closing, one final story feels apropos. The image of my chocolate lab, Remi, with her monstrous stick at the top of this post reminds me of all she's taught me about letting go. Because, of course, she will NOT let go of her stick until she's ready. When the retrieving game is new and fully on, she happily hands her stick over. But as she starts to tire, she won't let go of her stick so easily. And the minute you try and pull or wrangle it from her, she clamps down harder. So, over time, I've learned a little trick to get Remi to let go: Take a few steps back and make her walk towards me. The forward movement and the fact that has to decide to come towards me with her stick seems pretty different from what happens when I don't move back. Feet firmly planted in one place, I move towards her for the stick. Which feels like me trying to force her to give it to me and let go. Which she refuses. But giving her some space to decide and move towards me means she usually lets go willingly. After a few chomps of indecision, that is. The forward movement she chooses to take towards me seems to aid the process. It can be helpful to remind our bodies that they can move in times of letting go. This keeps us from freezing and refusing to let go out of fear.

So, as I continue finding my way through the process of letting go, I plan to hold these words by Anthony deMello close for now:

‎"I have no fear of losing you, for you aren't an object of my property, or anyone else's. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine." 

Maybe this is the most loving gift we can give to one another at this moment. So, I will practice.

I'm sure there will be more grief and sadness, MANY opportunities to be compassionate with myself, lots of opportunities to look at and reshape those beliefs inside that would leave me depressed and fearful of what's to come, and lots of resistance to the uncertainty inherent in this time of change. At the same time, I hope to continue to hold our love, which we both know will remain (though in new form), with a deep commitment to freedom instead of attachment. We've practiced this together from the very beginning. And now we get to practice this in the most challenging context of all: letting go. With deep gratitude for all we've been able to offer one another each step of the way. And deep trust that things are unfolding exactly as they are meant to. And no attachment to what will come. Onward on this journey called life.

PS - 2 friends sent beautiful poems in response to this post that I am posting below because I don't want to lose them and I think others might appreciate. <3 Sorry spacing is wonky.

From my friend Claire:

To have without holding

BY MARGE PIERCY

Learning to love differently is hard,

love with the hands wide open, love

with the doors banging on their hinges,

the cupboard unlocked, the wind

roaring and whimpering in the rooms

rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds

that thwack like rubber bands

in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open

stretching the muscles that feel

as if they are made of wet plaster,

then of blunt knives, then

of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes

of grab, of clutch ; to love and let

go again and again. It pesters to remember

the lover who is not in the bed,

to hold back what is owed to the work

that gutters like a candle in a cave

without air, to love consciously,

conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can’t do it, you say it’s killing

me, but you thrive, you glow

on the street like a neon raspberry,

You float and sail, a helium balloon

bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing

on the cold and hot winds of our breath,

as we make and unmake in passionate

diastole and systole the rhythm

of our unbound bonding, to have

and not to hold, to love

with minimized malice, hunger

and anger moment by moment balanced.

Poem from my friend Tasha: