I don’t go away!    What does that statement actually mean? 

What does going away actually look like?

How would I go away? How is the someone else going away?

As a child there was a lot of “going away!” There was emotional, spiritually and physical going away or leaving. But as an adult is there really a going away?

This question has recently come to my attention through a personal encounter that I am having. I think about what does going away as an adult feel like? What is really happening in the perceived idea that a person is going away? Is there really a “going away” happening in an adult experience.

This might seem ridiculous because you could be thinking or saying to yourself “of course there is a going away!” People leave relationships by choice or by death or by lack of communication.  People make choices to separate and go in different directions because it is just time to leave or separate or let go. With death we have the sense of loss and a finality because the person is no longer in physical form. And then there is the “going away” that actually promoted this blog post.“Going away without communicating why or what you are doing.” The going away through that decision to not speak to someone is for me one of the hardest experiences to manage. 

I have examined this for many years and a recent situation has brought me back to re-examine the feelings and sensations that rise because of someone’s decision to not share with me what she is feeling and experiencing around an interaction that we had.

Back Story ~ About 4 years ago a very close friend of mine acted in a certain way towards me that struck me as abusive. It kicked up a lot of deep wounds that I experienced as a child. I shared this with him and told him that I was not able to talk with him at that time because I was upset by the way he spoke to me and was also surprised by his actions towards me.  At the time I was going through an extremely emotional as well as a financially challenging experience in my life. Major decisions had to be made and I was fragile. I unraveled the deeper parts of what happened between us and tried as best as I could to communicate during my process.  At one point he implied that I should get over this and let’s move on. That was when I realized that I had moved on. I moved on from abusive words and expressions that were familial and normal for me as a child. However, as the adult I had a choice to advocate and say “I do not want to be spoken to this way or be involved with anyone that deems this type of behavior acceptable.”

Now the question is when do we make these kinds of decisions? When do we stop talking about these behaviors or experiences with the particular person and move on in order to move closer to ourselves?

And this is what I am excavating from this recent experience. I don’t go away from anyone because essentially I am moving closer to myself. We can physically “go away” but there is actually no going away. Even if we never see or speak to that person again. So present experience and the person involved shared that she never goes away from relationships and that is what created a lot of this pondering.

I have come to understand that the declarative statement of “not going away” can also mean  “I have never really been fully committed in the first place.” Interesting concept!  I am still unraveling that one but there is a thread for me in there somewhere. I guess it comes down to communication is paramount in all that I do. It is not about regression or family ties. It is about the types of relationships that are nourishing and life giving in my present life.  And for me that means deep and soulful communication even when it gets uncomfortable.

So reflecting back on my recent experience where I chose to share something with a close friend about actions that had been upsetting and unsettling to me.

She felt hurt. I understand. She was shocked. I understand. She said she needs time. I understand.

What I don’t understand is not speaking about the in between process that is taking place? The process of those feelings that were created by my speaking about something that I believed would bring us closer in our intimacy of relating.

But as I have known for decades ~ I can NEVER know another persons experience unless they decide to share themselves with me. I try to NEVER anticipate what or how someone is going to feel or act. I can only try my best to stay present and true and loving to myself no matter what the outcome. Even in this post about going away and what it means is unknown territory and a journey of discovery that I am willing to explore.  I do this with myself so the fact that I choose to share this with others is not an easy thing. It is delicate, fragile, uncomfortable, scary and actually for the most part I find it empowering.

There are no clean cut answers or destinations to these life experiences. For me there are always more questions. 

Which leads me to share one of my favorite writings that always seems to soothe me and helps me to stay present in the unanswered questions that invariably rise in my life,

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke