A year ago this week launched one of the worst periods of my life. In many ways what transpired is why I am on the 3rd iteration of the rule. When a person is really deeply and fully in love and that partner decides to walk away it can break you. It broke me. I’m writing a few feet away from the spot where I spent entire days without moving. I was destroyed and unwilling to do anything but go through the paces of life for the sake of those in my life who still mattered.
The thing is, I don’t blame her.
From top to bottom the entire way things went down was my fault. I’ve never been a good partner. I’m selfish in an unconscious way. I’m complicated to a fault. I need recognition, influence, and instant gratification. These are the reasons I coach. It fulfills all of those needs. It also complicates everything else in my life, because of the focus I allow athletics to have on my way of life. I continue to believe there is room in my life for more than that. I see it everyday in the many quiet moments spent wasted. These days I fill those moments with bad television or other equally bad habits that have nothing to do with the things I ought to be doing with my time (I ought to be writing when I have time that I cannot spend with my partner or our family or at least grading during those hours).
She left because I couldn’t give her any form of consistency or even a shadow of the kind of life she wanted. I wanted to find common ground, but I don’t think she believed that exists. It does. There is a way and a rhythm that comes with bringing everything to the table, sorting it out, and deciding what to keep and what to focus on in order to find that small island of happiness.
As cheesy as it must sound, love is an island easily washed away by the tides of daily life. You have to dig in and hold on to each other less you be washed away and drown the way I did a year ago.
That isn’t the end of my love story. Mine continues to this day. Sometimes it limps along and sometimes it is strong and filled with the kind of passion and connection that fuels stories. Still beneath it all lies a pain that I caused–a hurt that I don’t believe has fully healed and one that I fail to fully recognize.