This reminds me of the Donne poem, a little. And what it says is true. When someone we've known dies, it takes away all the shared memories, in a way. A friend is working on my family tree, and it's so frustrating not to be able to just call my mother and say, "Do you remember where Grandaddy's mother was from?" I remember when my brother died in 1991. I was terribly aware that the only person who shared so many of my childhood memories was gone. Sometimes I think it's the shared memories we miss most of all.
IN the same vein, but different, I read once, when I had just broken up for the tenth time from a crazy but wonderful lover the likes of which I will never have ever again, that when we think we will never experience something wonderful again in a relationship, we must remember that half that relationship was us, and we bring that to the next relationship to mingle with the person in it.
So, we have a 50% chance, at least, of feeling very good feelings if we rely on the 50% that is us.
Was that clear enough? It's like the flip side of this poem, no?
But, given how unique each person is, the other 50% can never be the same as the last one, right? Of course, it could always be better (she said, full of hope!).
I never thought about it that way, but it is true. When my husband died they took something with them no one else knows about me,, and now can't pass that on to anyone else. I didn't think about it at the time, but now I understand another reason why we grieve, because the dead person takes something about us with them that now can't be shared.
half that relationship was us, and we bring that to the next relationship to mingle with the person in it.
I disagree completely. That half of the relationship that is us is unique to that relationship. We bring something quite different to the next relationship, because we are no longer the same person, having lost that relationship whether through death, divorce or disinterest. That relationship has made us a different person, and that loss has made us a different person yet again.
We can only bring our new evolved -- or devolved- self to each succeeding relationship, never the SAME self.
