I had the good fortune to spend a couple of weeks in my other version of paradise this summer: a little island in the middle of a lake in northwestern Maine. For the past 16 years I’ve been gathering with friends from far and wide. We are connected by threads woven in intricate and colorful patterns over the past 30 plus years. When the weather grows still and hot in St. Thomas, I start to dream of diving into the cold lake, sitting around a campfire playing music and hugging people I haven’t seen for a year or years, as the case may be.
I recharged, paddle-boarded in fresh water, listened to the call of loons, walked barefoot on mossy, pine needled covered trails through the woods and caught up on the lives of my friends.
As I filled folks in on my life over the past couple of years, I was treated to their stories. The following tale made a big impression on me. It was told by a woman I always look forward to seeing. She arrives with coolers and bags filled with produce and edible flowers from her abundant gardens. Her contribution is always the prettiest and the most floral: a gorgeous salad decorated with nasturtiums and she’s known for her colorful scarves and for her dancing.
I’d heard that her long-term partner had taken his leave while she was off on a trip over the winter. She’d come home to find a note saying he’d met someone else and moved out. Since she seemed pretty happy, I asked how she had handled such a shock and a loss. She admitted she’d been devastated and had retired to a girlfriend’s house for a month, waking up each morning with a heavy heart and crying herself to sleep at night.
When she finally went home, she woke up one morning and looked outside at the line of pine trees that rimmed one of her many garden plots – trees that had been a source of conflict between her and her ex. She’d wanted to cut them down and have them milled for building boards and he wasn’t in a rush and didn’t want them milled for boards so they never did anything with them.
She marched into the garage and picked up her chain saw. She chopped down all 18 trees, one right after the other. She felt great. She called the mill and arranged for the trees to be cut into pine boards. That did it. From that moment on she said she was over him. She laughed telling me about a note she got from a friend, “So that’s how Maine women get over heart-break – with a chain saw?” By picking up that saw she picked up the reins of her life and was liberated.
I’m adding this story to my collection about how people get over loss and heartbreak in their own unique and often unexpected ways. When my relationship ended, I dove into painting my house bright happy colors and I did it all myself. She chopped down trees. Other people have taken action in unique ways that channeled their energy and dark emotions into something positive and personal that had the effect of changing the channel, opening doors and letting in a big burst of fresh air.
There are stories that don’t have such happy endings. There is the violent rage of hurt and jealousy that can do untold damage to all involved. There is wallowing and watching the same movie over and over unable or unwilling to watch another film or consider that there is another story waiting to be written and lived and staying stuck instead.
As deliberate creators we are all authors of our own stories and if we don’t like the one we are living or the role we are playing, we can change it and that’s what interests me most.
If you have a story about getting over someone or something that transformed you in surprising and unexpected ways, I’d love to hear about it and so would everyone else who is struggling to rewrite his or her scripts, forgive, heal and move forward.
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