Lifestyle | In the Act of Letting Go

If you had asked me 2 years ago what my life would be like without him, I would have described a feeling of unbelievable agony and absolute gut-wrenching pain at even the thought of such a scenario. 

Flash forward to now, almost 2 years later and I can’t think of anything better than my life without him.  Losing him was the catalyst to finding me.  It allowed me to learn my greatest lesson by far, in the act of letting go.

I remember the day, the exact moment even, when I felt it all lift from my chest.  I swear it was almost tangible.  I could see the pain floating away from me and into the breeze, so I cried.  I wept like a goddamn baby.  But they weren’t the same familiar tears I had cried when I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and reaching for him.

They weren’t the tears I cried when looking back at old photos or reading our letters.  They weren’t the same tears I cried when I had any contact with him whatsoever.  They weren’t even close to the tears I cried the day we decided, in a very civil and mature manner, to part ways.  And nowhere near the ones I had cried on the day when I left him standing at the airport, headed on my final flight home and ultimately, the last time I would ever see him.

See the problem was that he is one of the greatest men I have ever had the absolute pleasure of knowing.  In all my previous relationships, I had defined the inevitable ending with the standard negative emotion.  This allowed me to replace any romantic feelings that could potentially be left with a metaphorical bandage and move on with my head held high, feeling completely justified.

This was not the case with him, at all.  I had no reason to be angry or resentful.  We went back and forth for months on the logistics of us only to find out that there weren’t any left.  In the end, we still loved each other but we had to move on for the betterment of ourselves individually.  How do I even begin to try and put the proverbial bandage on something that never caused a big dramatic gaping wound?

There is one answer to that question and it took me a while to find it.  And guess what it is… time.  This only came to me as a result of beautiful suffering.  Why was it so beautiful, you may ask?  Because with every single day, I shed another layer of my skin, thus revealing just a little bit more of my true self underneath.

The day I left him, I landed in Canada feeling completely deflated.  I hadn’t seen my mother in a year but instead of being excited to see her, I was just drained.  I remember one of the first things she said to me when she picked me up at the airport.  She looked me in the eyes, grabbed my hands and began to speak, “Catherine, do you know how special you are?  You have something really quite rare.  I like to call it your light.  It’s inside of you.  It glows so bright that it shines right out of you and reaches every single person you meet.  Then, we all feel the warmth of this light and are immediately touched by it.  It’s so beautiful.  But, where did it go? It’s almost like it just… went out.”

I genuinely believe that the Universe provides you with what you need, not with what you want.  You never truly forget the moment when you finally realize you’ve lost yourself.  But the best part of losing something is that you can finally appreciate what is actually gone.  Only then can you start the journey to discovering something new… maybe even yourself again!

So, what does this have to do with health and nutrition, you may ask?  Well, my life has now taken me on the path to healing others.  With this comes emotional health and wellbeing.  I’m offering my story to you, readers, as a beacon of hope to inspire you to always be who you are.  Let go and the rest will fall into place.

Photos: Catherine Sugrue & Amanda Hayden 

Catherine Sugrue