When I downsized my apartment in August, I gave away or discarded many things I no longer needed. It felt immensely freeing to know that I could move in three days, with just a minivan and a couple of hours' help from two teenagers for heavy furniture. Again, the secret was to pack lightly.
When you leave a long-term relationship, you bring a lot of emotional baggage away with you. What went wrong. What were your responsibilities; what were his. What you could have done differently to fix it. Could it still be fixed. You need to go through each piece and store or discard it, or trim it down to size as needed. .
And you will eventually start to mourn the loss of the relationship, similar to mourning the death of a loved one. Grief takes time and energy to travel through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. (And the road through these stages is not necessarily straight. Sometimes--often--it's a traffic circle.) You need to pack lightly so you have room for the grief, time for the trip through these stages, time for side trips or to get sidetracked and back on the road.
I found I was packing too much into my life, in an attempt to forget the grief. Too many activities (even though most were church-related). Too much work. Too much time talking and doing, not enough time meditating, praying, or listening.
You want to pack lightly for your new life. The hurts and lack of trust, the fears that later, another person will do the same things. Pack lightly! Otherwise you won't have much room left for the journey to the new.
I found that God had something to say to me, in the midst of the fear and anger and frustration, the bewilderment and hurt. He was grieving with me at the loss. He was walking down that lonely road with me. He was showing me what I needed to see, and giving me the ability to see--and give up--what I didn't need. And a place to discard what needed to be discarded.
Heavy resentments, anger, fear, frustration take up a lot of room. Compassion and forgiveness, much lighter and smaller to pack, replace them. Compassion and forgiveness for the person who had hurt me--and also for myself, that I was not perfect, that I had problems as well, that I had needed to leave the relationship to take care of myself and my daughter. Understanding of what went wrong, and why it had to end the way it did, and what I can do in later relationships to make them healthier.
So, pack lightly. Discard your resentment, anger, fear, and frustration and replace them with plenty of compassion and forgiveness.
- “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30, NIV]
- "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." [Ephesians 4:32, NIV]
- "Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt." [Mark 6:8-9, NIV]