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It is fascinating how one's life can transform in a moment. In the space of a month, I have said goodbye to a six-year relationship that, apparently, worked for only four of those years, if it worked at all. How was I oblivious to the fact that while I was imagining our lives together, she was imagining her life with someone else, someone specific at that? I go back, exploring six years of night dreams to see if I missed a sign that her heart had disengaged from mine. I recall a dream: I am struggling to awaken from a dream into another dream in which I find a young black girl in my bathroom. That dream was five years ago. Did I know then that she would need to do this, pursue her collective cultural shadow?
        In the space of a month, she brings to light a incident for which I forgave her but for which she could not forgive herself. Her claim is I was less willing to make myself vulnerable thereafter. I recall a dream from that time: A doctor from my childhood, Dr. Con, arrives, black bag in hand, takes one look at me, and heads off, saying there is nothing he can do. I look at my body--the image is one of chaotic strands of light of different colors dancing through my body, as if my chakras are blown. A year later I am wandering around Ireland with her, plagued by dreams of her death in air crash and me astral traveling through many worlds, looking to find her--I learn I can travel anywhere if my intent is focused and true. We commit to our relationship, ourselves, and each other on the Cliffs of Mohair. That was four years ago.
        In the space of a month, I process an incident from three years back. Lock, stock, barrel, and animals, we shifted our location for the sake of her vocation. I have the option of self-employment; she does not. In a heated moment, she admits six months later to having had a crush on another at the time I moved to be with her. It is a sign I should have noted and acted upon. Instead, I am generous, magnanimous, even. I invest in buying a house with her so we can build a home. That was 27 months ago.
        I find the dreams I recorded as we were making our home, around the time she admits, now, that her affair with a second woman started: A woman is making love to me but becomes distracted by two other woman. I am left hanging; I pull the blanket up over my head and let go of the feelings the woman aroused in me. Six weeks later, I dream I am standing with a man who is washing dishes in my kitchen. He is talking about someone who is involved. He says she slept with someone besides her partner. I wake myself talking in my sleep; I agree with him: It breaks the trust. The trust between us is broken, not only because she stepped out of what I thought was a relationship with mutually agreed boundaries, but also because she could not be honest about it: I am only informed two years later.
        In the space of a month, I have half the amount of material things and twice the amount of space in which to arrange them. All the pretty things, it seems, left with her. I organize what is left like a weaver at her loom, strand by strand; I paint away the mess of her leaving. For a week, between earning a living and the ordinariness of my existence, I am tripping over paint tins and living with the faint aroma of turpentine. Room by room I transform my home into a sanctuary. I have room to move, space to dance, and a life to live.
        In the space of a month, I shift from feeling indignant, to abandoned, to betrayed, to foolish, to amused, to empowered. I am indignant because she should have been honest two years back, not waited until her romantic interest finally divorced her abusive husband. I feel betrayed because she lived a lie lying beside me every night, feigning innocence when I asked why she was so disengaged. I feel abandoned because that is the reality of the situation: her physical presence has followed her heart; my physical presence is redundant in her world, an inconvenience. I feel foolish because I did not realize her heart was not with mine; instead, I was led to believe that my concern about her disengagement was my problem. I feel amused because I spent two years nourishing an illusion; I realize that whatever being loved I felt in those two years, those moments when love descended, opened my heart, and lifted me up, arose from a source that is not dependent on my being in relationship to her or anyone else. I feel empowered because for two years, I nourished her world so that she could build a dream that excluded me; now I can redirect that energy to those who nourish my world also.
        In the space of a month, I realize I have lost nothing at all; instead, I have reclaimed my Self, my inner truth, and my world as my own. I am no longer waiting for her to participate, opening myself up to negotiate meaning and mutually desired possibilities that would move an us that did not exist forward: I am no longer investing or invested in an illusion. I can move forward toward what I want without having to consider its effect on her. In the end, I am grateful for the realizations that have released me from bondage. I am free to invest my power in what is living, real, and meaningful. I have no more illusions...

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