how to let go of the space you hold

I’ve only recently realized how encumbered I am by weighted space when I go out running. It’s not just when I run, but running is the best example, because I’m alone, I’m moving quickly, my senses are heightened, maybe peaked, hyper aware of my surroundings. My sight is drawn to flits of movement, reflections of light, pops of color, shapes delineated into outlines of the animals I’m looking for. On good days it’s just me there. I don’t mean just me in the park, although that does happen sometimes and there’s nothing quite like having a giant meadow in the middle of Brooklyn to yourself on a Tuesday morning. I mean it’s just me, fully present, an organism among organisms. But oftentimes I’m not alone. I hold so much space for my living ghosts. I run around and come across a sycamore grove, or a heron, or a patch of purple aster, and I stop and I appreciate it and I also show them, my ghosts. I say “Look at how beautiful this is. Do you understand me better now that you know what arrests me? Now that you’ve run this path in my steps?” I’m always showing her, my ghost, always showing her my adopted city, my adopted land, always showing her the trails I’ve cut through this giant metropolis and the secrets I’ve uncovered. I take her to the house that planted a yellow rose bush in front of a yellow wall, or I take her to Mozart’s bust tucked into the maple trees. Every time I show her, I prove I have a place in this world, my own version of a city she’s incapable of seeing unless I show her. And my ghost, when she lets me show her, she gets it. She gets me. And with that understanding, the doors to the possibilities of our love fling open and there I stand, endorphins ignited, arms wrapped tightly around the ghost of a friend who isn’t there.

And it’s only just dawned on me how long I’ve been doing this. I found a section of the park that floored me with its beauty, and I came upon it just as I was mulling over how long its been since she’s returned my letters, and in that moment the real life friend met the ghost and the real person subsumed her ghost and I finally realized not only how alone I am, but how long I’ve been carrying around this space, the space that belongs to the ghost.

Relationships are stories we tell ourselves. My relationships give me anchor points and help me craft an identity that I’m always grasping to illustrate. My friends, my husband, they give me an outline, and I fill it in with my responses to the world. There is a certain density, though, that comes with a one-sided story. And it’s not a matter of right and wrong, however much my sharp-tongued little ego wants it to be. Its the problem of holding space for a figment, for an idea, for a tortured desire, for insert-her-name-here. And now that I know that’s what I’m doing, I want to know how to let that space go.

Googling is no use. Even the term “holding space” is so mired in therapy lingo jingo that I’m almost annoyed it’s the single metaphor that makes the most sense. The space I’ve been holding is for a real person that I love, so the bulleted bullshit tip lists like “7 Sure Signs It’s Time to End a Friendship” can’t guide me through this conundrum. The closest concept my brain can devise is funerary. I’m grieving the loss of my idea of what this friendship was. And what do we do at funerals? Pour one out, remark on the good times, make a fire. So maybe I’ll have a funeral, I don’t know.

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