Departures

I never imagined that it would end like this... After many sessions with gratitude, positivity and mutual respect; I would imagine that this relationship would gradually and gracefully fade away. It would be so smooth that it would feel like a perfect plane landing on an optimal weather. It would consist of a high ground, a collage of highlights, lowlights. We would say goodbye to each other with tears of happiness and sorrow. We would exchange few compliments and end the session with a controlled and ideal distance. I guess I also idealized that last departure as everything else I idealize.

I imagine myself and my voyage partner as two space crafts voyaging at vast amount of speeds. Once we disconnect and set off of to our different paths, I think it's pointless to imagine a different way to say goodbye. Because it takes couple of seconds to be kilometers apart. We've already left each other and we're already gone. It hurts to be disconnected like this but it's already happened. Now what, I ask to myself. Looking at the empty and the dark space ahead. I play and pause that last conversation hundreds of times on my mind and I feel like I just experienced a traumatic experience. I get sad about it but then I tell to myself my voyage partner allowed this, I allowed this to happen.

Every time I say goodbye to a voyage partner, I tell to myself that they also chose to leave. They could also shown flexibility, right? All these intricate connections we built over years, would open a safe space to talk about anything, right? Haven't we talked about the things that we were most insecure about, openly? Haven't we built that trust with love? Wasn't there a real love that would encapsulate all the negativity? Haven't we trained each other for this kind of most unfortunate climates? Haven't we seen the desserts of winter and desserts of summer? Haven't I shown enough commitment to change, to be a voyager and to confront myself truthfully in this hygienic therapy room?

I don't know when was the last time I felt like this. Out of a sudden the streets of the city were looking so empty and that sunset was hurting for real. That was a terrible session I was thinking to myself. Then I told myself to stay calm and see where I am at. It took me a day to think clearly that maybe this have happened for the best. Maybe this way it will allow me to look back, think clearly and reflect one more time on everything. The ending was inevitable. I was going to feel sad either way. But the way it ended was a traumatic experience. From the moment it happened, I knew that I was going to remember how it started and how it ended. Even though my memory already erased some corrosive parts of the session, I think I will remember that day with sorrow for a long time.

After the session, I went for a run on a beautiful Amsterdam evening. It was dark, stormy and a bit rainy. I loved the head winds on the way, it made me feel alive and it polished my disappointment. I think that was the most prominent feeling, disappointment. I was not angry throughout it. I was assertive because those trust issues have arosen already couple of times. And the second time I felt that there were strong cracks between us. After all those times, just one time I wanted to be clear. I wanted to understand the full story but the way I was answered was so defensive and triggered. I should have stopped there to end the relationship. Because whatever was happening behind the scenes, were never meant to known by me. That lack of transparency had a triggering effect on me.

My father was an obscure man. We didn't use to know much about what he was thinking and how he was acting. When we used to ask him what was on his mind, he used to mock, give indirect and unclear answers and acrimonious smile which was making me feel his conceit. I was not respected mostly anyway and he was a total under educated Anatolian father in terms of emotional intelligence. He used to work at another city and he would be gone for at least four days a week. While he was gone, the most apparent feeling I would feel was the insecurity on a material and moral dimension left alone with my mom. Fast forward to ten maybe fifteen years; as if he was trying to make up all the time he was gone, he would make brute forced plans without even asking. And in that last session, I felt my father's being in the room. There was that obscurity. Poisonous arrows have been shot and the war was started.

I think we both were tired and we didn't want to take it anymore. I think this partnership has ended some time ago I thought to myself. If he let go of me like this, that had to tell me something. I might have made many mistakes asking those questions but seriously I thought we passed so many levels and we both had that privilige to question each other truthfully. But it didn't matter anymore because the war showed great despair with disrespectful manners. I was feeling the escalation and it was already too late when I tried to calm both of us down. Once the voice was raised and more disrespectful behaviours shown, I just left the room. I no longer belonged there.

Sometimes we don't choose the moods we end up at. I think that day the room was a bit off guard. I didn't forecast myself, the room and the counter party before addressing my doubts. Then I thought to myself that if I earned at least a little respect in that room, a ceasefire would have happened. Because I tried to pull the hand brakes couple of times. And this was not the first time where we had a turbulent session. We somehow managed to find that balance in that kind of enviroments. Even one of us was off guard, the other would pull the lever. But that day, standing pillars of our relationship have got damaged.

I was disappointed but not angry. I wanted to keep the communication ongoing but it was not possible. I was having gratitude towards this voyage until this day but I was sad that it ended. There I was, alone again and it felt like a great earthquake which shook my heart. Because all these times, whenever I had a crisis, the person I would go to, was gone from my life. That reality had a cold water shocking kind of effect on me. Then I just kept continued to my cycling workout as if nothing happened. I just let it go and see what time might bring. I wanted to believe that everything happens for a reason so bad. And to that every departure would bring new arrivals.