On the way back from Utah Ky and I listened to a Huberman Lab (I know, I know) podcast featuring Esther Perel. We took the trip because we’d entered the repair stage of our relationship, certain (like we’d been the whole time) that we loved each other, but feeling trepidation that we could actually be together long term. We wanted to at least give it a real shot.
So we went to Utah, repairing. We had lots of good times and a lot of tense, difficult times. Lots of tears. Lots of doubt, and my unspoken commitment to ask for space (yet again) when we got back to Bend so I could reassess. There were plenty of moments it felt like we were white-knuckling things, barely enjoying our vacation because of the heaviness of our recent breakup and the fear of it happening again if we admitted we were getting back together. Things just felt uncertain and heavy.
We listened to this podcast because I love Ester, and wanted some guidance. Toward the end of the episode she talked about couples coming to her to repair after infidelity or other huge ruptures, and how she works with them. She said “I have no interest in helping couples survive”. She talked about how people change over time, and how couples have to adapt if they want to stay a couple, and one thing she brought up that rocked our little worlds was when she talked about repair. She said repair is boring, heavy, unsexy. Repair is not the goal; revival is the goal.
Lightning bolts went off in our hearts and minds. It felt like my body was buzzing with the realization.
Repairing our broken relationship honestly kinda sucked. We were gritting our teeth, replaying our hurts and our fears and perspectives on what happened so often we weren’t at all being present. We were holding back, nervous, guilt-ridden and doubting, often wondering “is what is broken even worth repairing?”
And frankly, something I felt listening to Ester was…maybe not. Maybe I don’t want to repair what was broken. Maybe I want something new, something better. I want more for us.
Revival.
Ky and I agreed; repairing our relationship sucked. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t hopeful or exciting. But creating something new? Meeting each other where we were now, as the people we’d grown into during the last three years? That was sexy. That was exciting. That made me feel curious, interested, and way more engaged.
My defenses dropped, and deep understanding washed over me. I told him I understood why he left, and I was sorry for the ways I’ve hurt him, and that I loved who he is and wanted to move forward. He’d already said the same. We looked at the wreckage, and we said goodbye to it. We didn’t need to mull it over anymore. We decided to look forward.
It isn’t like that epiphany fixed everything and we’re solidly planning to get married and have babies anytime soon; we’re still the people we are, both clinging to personal freedoms and both with pasts that influence our communication styles. But it was a turning point. It did change some things. I feel better than I ever have now, in this revival stage, curious and excited about the ways we can move through this world lovingly together. Things feel really good, really exciting. The qualifier I keep saying is “we may break up again, who knows!” and my friends say “literally every single couple may break up at some point.” So I’m gonna stop adding the qualifier.
~Lately I keep looking around at the chaos of the United States government and the seemingly insurmountable amount of anger and pain in this country. It scares me. I’m afraid for my loved ones, and I’m afraid for myself, and I’m afraid I’m being robbed of the lifestyle my parents and grandparents were afforded when we had better policies in place. I keep thinking “how do we fix this?”
And then I read about our history, and I think maybe this system is working out exactly as it was designed to, and maybe…we shouldn’t work to repair it. Maybe we should revive it into something better.
I’m watching all this destruction and division and I’m thinking about my romantic relationship with Ky. He said our relationship had so much conflict before because of the way we started out; we’d assumed it would be a short, intense Summer fling, that we’d crash and burn eventually. He said, how could we have had a loving, long term, and stable relationship with the mindsets we carried into it?
I think about the formation of this country, the genocides of Indigenous people and the way we used to own other human beings. I’m thinking of how capitalism will always create scarcity, how it will always create divisions and hierarchy and exploitation. I’m thinking of the language we speak, how we call living beings “it” so as to feel better about exploiting, extracting from, and disposing of them. How could anything other than what we’re seeing now, have resulted from such a mindset?
I’ve started thinking, yes this whole thing is broken, and repairing it seems impossible and exhausting. But maybe we don’t have to repair it…maybe we need a revival. Maybe we don’t need to make anything back into something it once was; maybe we need to progress into something better.
I’m in a philosophy class right now and one essay in my textbook talks about chaos theory. It says “chaos is both movement and evolution.” It says “chaos and its offspring, creativity, are the generative forces of the universe”.
And, “we cannot help but participate with the world”. This book calls us “co-creators with nature”.
What are we co-creating?
Repairing my romantic relationship didn’t feel creative, but reviving it does. Reassessing what we want now, not what we wanted three years ago when we started, feels exciting and creative. I think reassessing what works for America and the entire global community now, not what worked then, (for only a small percentage of people, at that) is important here. It is the key to revival, to finding solutions that work for us all. We have real problems in this country, and they require real solutions, and I don’t think they require violent solutions that pit us against one another, pawns in some elitist’s strategy game.
Lately I am looking to those who have faced dystopia before, who have been living through apocalypse already. I’m looking to them for guidance, for a blueprint for how now to live. I am looking for ancient wisdom, for a new (to me) paradigm.
I don’t know that we fix Capitalism. I don’t know that we “repair” America after this. I am hoping there is an awakening, that the public can see how we’ve been tricked and that there is grace for those coming out of the myth. I do not want to repair what is broken because I want something new, something better, healthier. I want something we can face our flailing infrastructure with, something we can prevent wars with, something we can face the changing temperatures around us with. I want the systems of oppression that feed off one another to be seen for what they are, and I want the freedom that is on the other side of that rupture.
I want more for *all* of us.