Holding the (un)certainty

For the past few weeks I’ve been struggling with a sense of being in a limbo. The expression “holding the uncertainty” has come to my mind so often… Uncertainty, feeling “in-between”, neither really here nor there: uncertain of what I want to do professionally, of what I even want to do as of next summer or fall; the being “in between” geographically, neither in California anymore nor fully in Colorado in a stable way; not knowing where I want to live next; the being “in-between” genders; having a legal name with which I don’t identify anymore and cannot wait to change but being unsure of where and when and how to change it legally… 

I’ve been trying to hold all this uncertainty, while not thinking of it too much. 

But in the past two days, there’s been more than uncertainty for me to hold: there’s actually been certainty for me to hold. And I’m finding that certainty can be just as intense to hold as uncertainty. 

Ten days ago, I made a gift: a gift to myself, first of all; but I was hoping it might also be a gift for the other person, the one receiving my message. It was intended as a free gift, in order to give myself — my conscience, my soul, my heart — deeper peace and real closure, at last. It worked for me. But it went even further: it generated further gifts. 

I received a gift in response this week, two days ago: an unexpected reply to my message. And with it, certainty: the certainty of having been an extremely important figure in that person’s life; the certainty that the other person had special and intense feelings for me, too, as I did for them; the certainty that everything that I had imagined and intuited and felt was correct, was real, was true. 

It lasted three years, almost to the day. Three years of confused messages, of conflicting or tricky situations, of intense feelings that had to be mostly kept hidden. A weird relationship and yet one of the most intense, and maybe important, ones in my life. And now it’s finally healed: closure with everything being said, openly, honestly, with kindness and gratitude, on both sides. And with the knowledge of it having been mutual, mutual all along. 

And now I want to hold this certainty. After three years of doubts and uncertainty, of confusion and frustration, now I want to hold this little treasure, this precious gift. Just hold this feeling: hold it and kindle it to let my heart heal fully, to let my heart become whole again.

The power and sweetness of this closure, this closure with kindness and gratitude, is wonderful. It’s one of the most healing feelings I have ever experienced. 

But it’s also mixed — there are mixed emotions. There’s mostly a warm, soft joy, on the surface; there’s also a very intense relief and some deep satisfaction. But there’s also a sense of loss. Because for me this is truly the end: this relationship now lays fully in the past for me. In another ”lifetime”, as I wrote in my message — and I truly meant it. 

This morning I found myself telling my counselor about this latest exchange of messages and after a while he pointed out that I was talking about that relationship, that situation, that person, using the past tense, whereas the other person wrote about “reconnecting”, using the presence tense, in their email reply. That’s when it really hit me: for me it’s over. This time, I’ve really found my closure: I’m in a different place, both emotionally and geographically, from the last time we met in person. And I’m not going back. This is part of that certainty that I’m holding now: it’s partly heavy to hold but it’s also extremely precious, and I want to hold it for as long as I may need. Hold this certainty of having loved and been loved back, of having understood everything all along, of having planted some lasting seeds; but also hold the certainty of this being all in the past for me. 

Loss and relief. Bittersweet. But there’s something warm and golden and luminous about it. And that’s what I want to hold now: hold this little light in my heart now and for as long as I may want to, while I look ahead and walk on.