One of the most painful accusations thrown at me during a break up was “You’ve changed.” It’s so simple and pointed. It wants to expose the other, place blame, reject. And in my case, it was totally true. One hundred percent. Of course I’d changed, I’d been experiencing life and growth and relating intimately with others. How could I have not?
I want my relationships to be a laboratory. I want to experiment with growth and boundaries. Research and development of the selves. I want to find out who I am, destroy that, build something new, destroy that...
I want my partners to change. I want them to look radically different after some time with me. I want them to keep developing, keep growing. Outgrow that thing that kept you quiet, small, habitual. Learn a new skill or find a new community. Don’t stay stagnant, stuck your in old ideas of who you are, what you like, what you do. Please god, change. Become more of yourself, become something else- but don’t stop changing. I want my partners to be on fire with curiosity about themselves and the world.
I think what my partner actually meant was “You’ve changed in ways that I don’t like and don’t want to be around.” And that’s fair. It’s totally OK if this partner doesn’t really get what I’m up to, isn’t feeling it, or wants something else. We can part with love and respect that we’re on different paths, totally cool. The important element here is taking responsibility for one’s own experience.
In order to love someone well, you’ve got to encourage their growth- even if it means they’ll become less desirable to you or less desiring of you. Loving someone in only their current iteration, and dependent on their availability to you, is not kind. It keeps people small and stuck in the past. It’s not a love I want in my life.
To change within relationship is not a crime, but necessary to continue on the human journey. It’s micro evolution. As our sweet Eckhardt Tolle says, “Die to the past every moment!” Forget who you were and create a new self now, with all your current wisdom and curiosity. Please, for the future of humanity, change. Change and change again, and let me change too, even if it means we don’t fit together in the same way <3