The Unexpected Freedom Drunk

Can you feel the healing vibes of this wonderful place? Catalonia in the right window. She spent a lot of time there.

So not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about Adventure or Stability in the Writer’s Life. For those who’d like to read about that, there will be a link to that post at the end of this one.

 

Suffice to say, that’s all changed now and that’s given me something to write about.

 

I broke off my engagement and that puts me back in the freedom-junkie phase of life. But this time I’m on the road in a very peculiar adventure. I’m vagabonding on the outskirts of Portland until my ex and her daughter move out of my house. And I have 4 cats with me.

Aengus and Rimsky Korsakitty

 

As break-ups go, this may have seemed sudden to my ex. But we’ve been hanging on by a thread for almost a year, and we’ve had many break-up talks in that time. We even negotiated everything from money to who keeps how many cats to me leaving my own house until my ex and her daughter move out, etc. All the logistics discussed beforehand, when it was time to pull the band-aid off cancer it was time. So how “sudden” can this really be?

 

Maybe I’m in pain and I’m too numb to know it. Perhaps I’ll feel it when I’m back home in my house that will be empty of their presence and their things. Maybe then I’ll be overcome with a tidal wave of grief and loss. But I suspect we stayed together far past our natural expiration date.

 

I felt heavy in my heart on waking up every morning for the first week or so, but nothing that I couldn’t shake off within an hour. Other than that, the most notable sensation of each day is relief.

 

I’m more than 3 weeks past that day when I tore off the band-aid holding our relationship together, and the crushing pain of loss has yet to overcome me. If anything, I feel freedom drunk.

Zephyr and Aengus

I thought that ridiculous sensation of the post-break-up-freedom-drunk ended with my 20’s. This is different. I don’t feel the euphoric giddiness I savored after extricating myself from a toxic relationship when I was young. But I do feel alive. Many people have told me that I seem lighter since I left. Why wouldn’t I? I finally ended a relationship that lasted too long for all the wrong reasons – on my end as well as my ex-partner’s end.

 

Of course, the first place I stayed helped a lot. It was an absolute jewel, filled with color and light and spaciousness, and oozing with healing vibes I desperately needed. When I got there at Estancia Serenova, I was still in shock. My hostess, Lisa, was so warm and supportive and encouraging that I did the right thing. She also accepted all my cats. That was no easy feat, finding places that were ok with them.

Zephyr

I felt held in that beautiful space, and I stayed there for two weeks.

 

Where I am now is pleasant enough. I’m on a ranch north of Portland. I’ve enjoyed seeing the freaked out fascination of the cats over the sight and sound of horses, far more massive than dogs.

 

But it’s the opposite of the light and spaciousness of where I was before. It’s dark and constricted. I have far less space and the cats are starting to drive me a little nuts with their restlessness. But I can appreciate the yin and yang balance of this change – going from the light and expansive to the dark and constrictive. Healing of hope and renewal and then the reality that growing pains hurt for a reason. That’s where I’m at now. And part of me wants to run back to the space and color and light of Estancia Serenova.

 

And maybe I will. The cats liked it too. They had far more space to run and jump, and they loved going up and down that ladder to the loft.

Rimsky Korsakitty

This is not the most fun I’ve ever had on a road trip. But this post break-up freedom drunk is an odyssey of sorts, this bizarre limbo that is really starting to get to me. As a whole, I feel really blessed. I’m lucky that I’m able to distance myself instead of getting mired in the twisty, gnarly web of push and pull that characterizes the last gasps of a dying relationship.

 

Okay, time to stop now. I’m getting maudlin and gloomy. But this is the first thing I’ve written in weeks. Maybe I’ll return to my novel soon.

 

Link to previous post, click here.

By the way, aren’t my cats pretty?

Catalonia and Aengus