The forever thing.

It’s too long, clearly. No-one has that kind of staying power.

What does it mean, anyway?

I don’t think we’ve thought it through, when we’ve pledged forever, but it’s romantic, I suppose. It brings up images of blissful years spent canoodling together in bed, dreamy canoe rides at sunset, long walks in the countryside holding hands, and finally, a scene on the front porch rocking in a swing built for two, our bodies and faces etched by time, aged but still hanging on to our promise of forever.

But that’s not forever. Forever means, well…much past that lifetime and several others and then more lives and then…forever. It’s difficult to picture even. By then, we might be quite done with each other and wishing that time had an end.

It’s all in the word.

We say things we don’t mean when we make promises and set our expectations to incomprehensible heights. Well, what harm can there be in saying forever you ask? We know we don’t mean forever, we mean for a very long time, so long that there won’t be a possibility to leave each other, because forever hasn’t happened yet.

And there is the rub. Somewhere, deep in our psyche, we understand that we have said something we didn’t truly expect to accomplish, it was an overstatement, a representation of our hopes that it would last a lifetime, a word spoken out of deep love and commitment…a lie of sorts.

We might not feel it on a physical level quite as poignantly as we feel it on the soul level. The soul is very hip to our true intentions. It cannot be fooled with vehemently stated promises.

One of the key principles of manifestation is that the soul and the spoken intention must be aligned. Words are most powerful when they are a true representation of our soul’s intention.

Speak what you mean and mean what you speak.

There is a kind of fear that builds up slowly within us when things go wrong and we realize that we’ve pledged for forever; a kind of inner gnawing upon our heart when it tries to hang on to a promise that must be broken because life has become unbearable. We want to honor our words, we want to keep our promises; we want to live that dream of an unbreakable love.

But what if at the outset, we allowed ourselves to imagine the end?

What if we agreed that forever might be too long, much as it stirred our imaginations, and that we would concentrate only on day one of togetherness. No more than that. Just one day where we experienced each other so deeply that there was no need for forever; an appreciation of each other so devastatingly real that forever would ruin the moment.

And every day, what if we repeated that experience, our intention never any further than the day before us?

No thoughts of tomorrow at all. No forever promise, not even a ‘for this lifetime’ promise.

What if we agreed to some days fall into the pain of what it would feel like to not have your beloved curled around your warm body at night, his or her breath absent from the soft of your neck, their leaving so difficult to imagine that you would cherish even their most annoying quirks?

Allowing ourselves that possibility when we’re still freshly besotted can keep us from taking each other for granted.

What if we broke up with the idea of a lifetime, and let go of expectations that we would make it through the storms. What if we said that we would live only for this moment, this second of time where we adored each enough to not make any promises at all?

What if we made peace at the beginning of our relationship with letting go should there a day where that was necessary?

What if the pressure to stay together was gone and all that was left was your habit of loving each other without conditions; just the purity of knowing each other as two beautiful incarnations of stardust?

What if you broke up early on, and had got it over with? Just a day set aside for “breakup.” A kind of game that sets up future break ups as “been there, done that.” I know that this may sound like utter madness, but there have been many days when my partner and I have needed space to re-calibrate our emotions towards each other. When one of us has said “I’m leaving.”

And then the other would say…

“We’ve done that already babe, and all that is left now is what I feel when you’re gone, and I need you back.”

We break up with each other sometimes still. For the day. We take a breath. We imagine ourselves free. We imagine ourselves untethered. We soar with new oxygen to our lungs as we release our anger. By evening, we are anticipating feeling new to each other. There are no expectations of reconciliation, if it happens it happens. There is only a flutter of remembering when love was new.

And then, with no need to prove anything to anyone, we come back together to experience day one again. Because that is what truly lasts forever; day one, that moment when your heart broke with love for the one staring into your eyes.

That moment cannot be erased from the records of time. It is what lives forever even if you cannot walk together anymore.

And sometimes, that has to be enough.

Relephant: 

Let there be Spaces in Togetherness.

Author: Monika Carless 

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: via the author 

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