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Witnessing your best friend fall in love is an experience packed with contradicting emotions.
As my best friend Rylee was falling in love, I was confronted with a painful heartbreak from a short-lived relationship.
Rylee and I lived together for a year before reaching this important contrasting intersection. During the year with our bedroom doors across the way from the other, we were offered an invitation to unlock different aspects of ourselves that we had either forgotten, rejected, or denied. The year was a precious remembering that we were destined to experience together.
Rylee is galactic and ethereal. Spending time in a realm that extends beyond the physical. She meditates, meeting astral beings who guide her on her journey.
I am of this earth. I play and explore in this physical world, seeking social gatherings, outdoor adventures, and dance floors in search of human connection.
I spent the year awakening and getting in touch with my spirituality, accessing the profound transformation that this life is made for. Rylee spent the year rediscovering her humanity, accessing the light-hearted play that this life is made for. I became more in touch with a realm beyond the physical and Rylee landed her feet back on this earth.
The exchange of experiences was such a blessing and the year left us transformed. The grand transformation was woven with the simple yet meaningful moments that living with your best friend has to offer.
We cooked so many vegan pasta dishes. We sagged the shit out of our house. We went line dancing on Thursdays. We fell asleep in our living room to guided meditations. We navigated the wild terrain of dating and sat on the vintage cozy “blue chairs” in our living room to swap stories.
We acted as each other's mirrors and each other's cheerleaders. The year called for each of us to share our reflections and advice with the other. More importantly, the year called for us to witness each other.
To witness someone and to be witnessed is the greatest act of love.
I have discovered that the love shared within my female friendships is magic. They are fueled by an energy that empowers both women to seek their unique paths. My friendships have radically changed my life. I am as grateful for them as I am for any romantic love story I have ever had. I believe platonic friendships have their own special type of love story.
Loving someone for a lifetime means the changes within your relationship dynamic are inevitable. Allowing yourself to feel the emotions tied to these changes and then making peace with these changes is crucial to sustaining lifelong relationships.
For the last month that we lived together, Rylee was rarely home. Love had drawn her in a new direction. I was happy she was gone - experiencing the thrill of falling in love. I spent the entire year witnessing her fiercely pursue romantic love and seeing her find the person she wants to spend her life with was epic. When she returned from her first date with Connor, I could not stop smiling. There was a shared look in our eyes that said “this is it.”
While the “this is it” energy solidified, I was sad she was no longer around. I ate our favorite vegan pasta dishes alone and felt the absence of her energy in the room across the way as I slept at night. I no longer woke to the long monologues of Rylee recalling her wild dreams from the night before and was met with the silence of my morning routine.
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One day we crossed paths in our living room.
She wore white. I wore black.
I had just returned from the self-sabotaging decision of seeing my ex yet again and had salty dried tears in the corners of my eyes.
She was just about to head out to meet Connor. Her eyes sparkled with the idea of seeing him again.
We acknowledged the poetic contrast of this moment. Both of us were scared that this contrast would impact our ability to witness each other and hold space for each other. In ways it did, but we both held reference for where the other was at in her journey and trusted the contrast would alchemize us.
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When your best friend falls in love, their energy is understandably redirected. Late-night conversations are shared with the ears of another. The triggering and difficult aspects of life start to be processed with them and not you.
So I cycled through being happy for her, celebrating her, envying her, and missing her.
I had to hold space for myself to experience it all. I had to accept that I could be happy for her, celebrate her, envy her, and miss her all at once. As the complicated human that I am.
And if I did not feel and acknowledge my envy and grief, it could poison my genuine joy and happiness for her.
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I look back on the chapter I had with Rylee living together as single sisters and I grieve that it is gone. I look back on this chapter in my life and I celebrate it existed. With both sorrow and gratitude, I have peace that all is meant to be exactly as it is.
If life remains the same, your growth is stunted. If life is changing, growth is exponential. Change is difficult - some change is more bitter than others.
Life is death and rebirth. This happens in obvious ways- when we are born and when we die. As a grandchild enters this world, too soon after a grandparent might leave.
But death and rebirth are happening constantly. Subtly. Secretly. Aspects of your life depart so that new layers of your existence can be born. Sometimes it is gradual, other times it is in an instant.
When a piece of your life is dying, know that something is about to be born.
This change pushed me to take the next step in my spiritual journey, which introduced me to many new experiences and allowed me to deepen other relationships. Most importantly, the new chapter called for meaningful time with myself- rebirthing my relationship with Morgan.
Transformation Questions + Activities:
» Allowing yourself to feel contrasting emotions is a complicated aspect of the human experience. Reflect on a recent experience or situation that brought up multiple contrasting feelings.
» Death and rebirth are woven within our lives. Journal or reflect on a death and rebirth moment that you experienced in the last year.
» Are you experiencing a symbolic death in your life right now? How so? This is a sign that something is ready to be born.