I wish I had been braver

“…a certain amount of energy and courage (though I dislike using the word), and a certain amount of recklessness.” ~ James Baldwin

Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?

I look back and see the moments and the decisions made. And I wish I was braver.

Though perhaps hindsight makes it too easy to ask courage of the person we were.

To leave a marriage takes courage. Ten years in the making, before the decision. Like many, I lived with the thinking and dissatisfaction, the worry, the “what-ifs” and the “shoulds”. They piled up, and like clothes strewn across the floor of a marriage - day in, day out, I stepped over them. Occasionally I picked up a piece or two and considered them yet not quite having the heart to let them go.

Over time, one piece after another, I began to let go until I could see the marriage floor only to find the foundation had indeed rotted away. By then the decision to leave was clear. From there, swift actions were taken and just like that, we let go.

Except, of course, it wasn’t “just like that”. There were years within that moment.

Courage at every moment of contemplation. Courage at carrying on within the uncertainty. Courage in daring and taking action.

My book “First you have to say goodbye: A gentle guide for the unfolding self” grew out of the long ending of a marriage. Ending is not the moment of decision; it is through the years of change and transitions. Ending, like dying, is a process. The poems threaded through the book held some of the emotional turmoil and hope I experienced, the self-care and the values I sought to protect. It took courage to write it.

Amidst the wild changes, it took years to get the book published. Years in which I pondered and agonized over a word, a phrase and the effect those words might have on readers. I wanted to avoid misunderstandings. To avoid making my experience sound like everyone’s experience. To own the experience as mine without imposing it on the readers or diminishing a life unlike my own. I had after all gone through that experience relatively unscathed.

I was considerate and careful in my writing.

I still value that care. But now I wonder about what I left out in its name.

My intention was to offer company to someone finding their way through an ending, any ending not just a marriage. To make room for uncertainty, grief and the possibility of a life they could not yet imagine. I wanted them to feel seen within the contradictions they are living through, and to give hope of a possible brighter future.

Yet, as I focused on how my words might negatively affect a reader, I paid less attention to what I hoped those words might make possible.

I wish I was braver in allowing myself to express the anger, sadness and disappointment of a dying marriage. They mattered. I ought to have honored their place in the book. At the time, it felt important to convey that these painful places were not where I stayed. I had moved through them, found some resolution and arrived at a place of greater ease. That was what I wanted the book to offer: a gentle guide through an ending.

But perhaps I was too quick to guide the reader through - to provide comfort and encouragement. Perhaps I could have stayed a little longer with what hurt. The grief is there in the book. Looking back, I wonder what else I might have allowed it to say. I feared my words might seem unkind. I wonder what might have opened if I had allowed those feelings to remain, without needing to justify or resolve them.

I have described myself as having come through relatively unscathed. I am less certain about that word now. Finding ease does not mean there were no wounds.

And I know there were circumstances and support that made it possible for me to leave and begin again. My experience was mine; I could not assume that someone reading the book had the same choices available to them.

This awareness mattered. It still does.

Yet I was also playing “nice”, Not wanting to hurt those who might read the book and find themselves in it.

I do not have a tidy answer. There were other people to consider. There still are. I continue to grapple with balancing respect for myself - as I speak my truth and sometimes provoke - and respect for others. And the wish to do no harm.

A lesson from my psychotherapy training, and a practice I have maintained throughout years of practice, is to refrain from telling a story that isn’t mine. This means owning my perspective and feelings, and giving others space to own theirs.

My anger was mine to speak of. So was my sadness and disappointment. I could have allowed them fuller presence without them being the whole story. Nor did I need to resolve them on the page quite so quickly to show that I had found my way through.

Perhaps this is something I am learning here, on Substack. Starting in a new space, sharing thoughts while I am still living with the questions. Noticing when care for the reader becomes a reason, a justification to hold myself back.

It is there, too, in an idea I am giving shape to: a retreat centred on writing. A space to explore what writing might help us discover about ourselves and the lives we lead, personally and professionally.

Even writing that sentence makes the idea feel more exposed. It matters to me and I do not yet know what it will become. I am allowing myself to begin - just as I hoped my book would inspire others to begin.

“Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.” ~ Rollo May, “The Courage to Create”

I wish I had been braver. And I can recognize the courage it took to get here.

Perhaps the question now is - where am I still stepping over things? What might I allow myself to say before hindsight once again tells me what I could have?

What might you dare to say now, rather than wish you had said later?

In the messiness of life, we keep becoming.

Florence
On Meaning and Becoming

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Did someone come to mind as you read this? Share it with them - perhaps it will open a conversation worth having.

There’s more to explore beyond this essay. If you’re finding your way through endings, change or new beginnings, my book, First You Have to Say Goodbye: A Gentle Guide for the Unfolding Self, might be good company. Pick up a copy on Amazon.