The Best Parts of Giving You Up

The best parts of giving you up, I suddenly appreciate more fully now.

Giving you up also means giving up:

the held breath,
the skip in two heartbeats
when an email comes up
or the phone rings
not expecting them
to be from you anyway.

even if they were,
i've given up
the delicious anticipation
of your words
or your voice,
as lately
i have actually come
to dread them anyway.

now,
i can go through my day
more clear-seeing
with surprising energies
for the myriad interests
and projects
i thank God
i have not given up too,
just because you were here.


strangely, too,
strangers come
out of the woodwork
from everywhere--
giving me
a kindly smile,
a friendly look,
more than a hint of interest.
and i am reminded
once again:
how good and valuable i am,
and how wrong you were.

although giving you up
meant giving up some old dreams
in deep sorrow;
it also means creating more new dreams
in expectant joy.

the bestest best part though
is giving up
the anger,
the pain,
the convoluted schemes
for revenge
to make you pay.
i am suddenly
truly
free!


hopelessness and hope;
emptiness and fullness;
darkness and Light--
each, both, all
and at the same time
in me.

denial,
bargaining,
anger,
depression,
acceptance--
Kubler-Ross says:
you go through them all,
and not exactly
in neat progression.

it's okay.
i'm embracing them all.

i'm embracing Me
again.

Embracing me.
That's even better
than bestest best. : )