Grieving and Goodbyes

Don't worry. No great misfortune has come upon me. Rather, I have come across many people who rehash their feelings for years, trapped in their own sadness and overwhelmed by their inability to control their emotions towards another person. In a recent conversation with a number of friends, I've recognized this pattern of behavior. Months of yearning and pining towards others that are unattainable or impossible.

I understand this sentiment. I have fallen victim to the anguish that accompanies the loss of a relationship that will never materialize. I can recall falling to my knees in sorrow, attempting whole-heartedly to find a solution, and relishing in every moment with that person like it was the last. In some ways, it's good to feel deeply. I always say, the stronger the emotions during the day, the better the day. It helps us remember and distinguish moments from the mundane, both good and bad. Anyhow, I digress...

Yes, it is good to feel strong emotions. As a friend put it to me today, when you are grieving for the loss of someone (speaking literally of death), it's healthy to feel emotions and recognize them. I absolutely agree with this sentiment, but after a short time, after death, we want to stop feeling so awful. We start to want to wake up feeling restored.

Many a time, I have heard relationship stories of people getting caught in a cycle of sadness over a relationship. It lasts weeks or months. Yes, healing time is important, but how much of that time is genuine attempts to lift the self up and say, "I don't want to feel bad anymore, I want to feel better again"? I would argue, rarely. We might commonly say, "I want this feeling to go away. And I'm going to reconcile it by trying to make myself available to my ex-lover", which of course only begins the spiral of destruction again.

I have begun to think that many single people I meet, "grieving" over a lost lover, may actually enjoy this feeling of self pity. Are we truly, at the root, emotionally masochistic? Do we some how gain something from our yearning?

Logic.

Ex-lover = pain. Pain <>Subtracting ex-lover from life yields feeling healthy. Because feeling healthy is better than pain!

Masochistic logic.

Ex-lover + pain = feeling healthy. Adding ex-lover and pain to life yields feeling healthy. Because having my ex-lover and having pain is going to make me feel healthy.

Maybe I shouldn't try to use math to explain this. The idea is that in maso-mode, we determine that attention from our ex-lover will somehow make things better and that our sorrow and tears will somehow help us regain the attention of a lover (or partners, "would-like-to-be" relationships or "we-can't-happen-in-the-long-run" couples). Think of it this way. It's like putting lemon juice in an open wound and thinking it's going to help it heal. Instead, we ought to put a band-aid over it, and not open it back up until the wound has healed.

In the death of a friend or family member, our tears do help us. However, after some time we realize that we HAVE to move on. We have to remember the experience and memories of that person and take that as it is. I recommend we take this practice more into our impossible relationships, recognize the truth and start waking up saying, "I don't want to feel this way anymore. I can make this day better".