“This is why we call people exes, I guess – because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. It’s too easy to see an X as a cross-out. It’s not, because there’s no way to cross out something like that. The X is a diagram of two paths.”
When you are going through a breakup, divorce or loss, it’s hard to see that its not the end. I like the idea in the quote here that there is no way to cross out what was. Even though you call him your ex, you were in love, you loved this person and it can never be erased. You can’t cross it out because the X is a diagram of two paths.
There are two paths now instead of a parallel path, two paths going in different directions. It’s not the end. It’s a diverging. To cross it out is not right. It speaks of trying to erase what meant something, what touched us at some point. How can you erase the hope of that? How can you erase the deep hope of a refuge where you were understood, where you called home?
No matter what happened, how untrue he was, how he hurt you, you can’t cross it out because crossing it out means to abolish that longing in you, that longing for home, for a refuge. You have come to a point in your life where two paths are diverging in the wood. Which path will you take? The one where you feel shame and try to erase what has happened to you. The one where you give into the fear, and moan about the unfairness of it all?
Choose the path of letting go and ambiguity. You do not know what you don’t know. You are asked to trust the path now, to step into an unknown emotional life. You are asked to step into the beauty of no control, of ambiguity. You are being asked to let of your shame, your blaming and your fear. You are asked to trust yourself and to trust life. You’re redemption lies not at the end of the path but having the courage to choose to take the path at all.