While finalizing my divorce, I can’t help but return to the beginning in an attempt to understand the road that has led me here.

The truth is, no one gets married to get divorced. Many things still sting about our failed union, particularly the broken promises. These promises are like open wounds that still take my breath away, and I can’t help but wonder: am I asking too much? Can these promises be upheld by humans who, as mere mortals, are born to err?

As I go over these unkept promises, I realize that I’ve never given myself the very things I’ve asked another person to give me, including love and acceptance.

How could I ask these things of someone if I had never taken the time, effort and energy to give these things to myself?

With this question in mind, I wrote myself a love letter and in that letter, I gave myself every promise and assurance that I had ever desired to hear; every pledge and oath that I desired to uphold in any union or relationship:

Dear Nicole,

I see you. I see you more clearly than anyone ever has, and I know your heart. I know how badly you desire to help ease the pain and suffering of others by listening, healing, sharing and validating each painful experience. To just allow love to flow through you because you are so abundant with the gift of love.

I see how sensitive you are and how you build and fortify the walls around your heart. I want you to know that your heart is safe with me; you are safe with me. I want you to know that you can trust me and I will live my life without ever letting you down. I will always be by your side as your biggest fan and loudest cheerleader because all I want is to help make all of your dreams come true.

When others are too busy to recognize what is going on in your life whether it is good or bad, I will see you—I will validate the energy you expend and will validate your efforts. I will celebrate you and your accomplishments—and your failures, because each failure is a step closer to those accomplishments. I will hear you when you have something to say, and I will hear your silence when you just need to be, without speaking.

I will encourage each act of creation you embark on and each adventure that calls to your soul. I do not judge you for your whims and fancies, but instead think you are courageous to turn away from a mundane life that does not feed your soul. I think you are courageous to unabashedly be who you are in a world that asks for mediocrity and compliance. I believe that you will only continue to get better as you learn, grow, and experience.

Nicole, you are so strong and so resilient. Time and again you have moved through resistance in trying times and found reasons to smile despite feeling shattered inside. Through that fragmentation, you have chosen the pieces you desire and rebuilt your world and heart in blind faith that you will love again, knowing that joy awaits.

Nicole, my love, my most precious friend and warrior woman, I love you with my whole being. I love you larger than the fickle, chemically-induced romantic love spoken into a lover’s ears at the height of ecstasy. I love you larger than the friendships weathered through the storms of life; for my love is the all-encompassing love that cannot be experienced fully within the boundaries of your body and the duality of your human mind. My love for you is the essence of creation and flows, silently raging, from the heart of God.

You are safe with me, I am your home.

Even on the days that you have overlooked me, belittled me or forsaken me, I will await you still, faithful and true, ready to lift you up by any means that you need or desire. I want to shower you with goodness and buy you the finest things in life, adorn your beautiful body with the most lovely fabric and build you up to be everything that I know you are.

I am so proud of you and every decision you have made, every part that you have played. I see what you call your flaws and I love and accept them too, because they play a part in the unique creation of who you are. I see you and accept you fully.

I will not leave you.

I am your greatest asset, I am your greatest friend and supporter. I will hold space to allow you to feel and experience all of life. When you inevitably make mistakes or fail, I will love you still. My love grows for you each time you step closer to who you really are and bring light into the world. You can never fail me.

My beloved Nicole, I see you. I love you and I accept you without boundaries or conditions. I am so proud of you. I am faithful to you, I honor you and I am forever loyal to you alone. In my everlasting love, you will be taken care of—every need and desire will be attended to; for in my love, you are safe, you are home.

You can always depend on me.

Your truest and greatest friend,

Your Higher Self 

Now is the time of completion—of healing the wounds and collecting the pieces to rebuild my whole self. It is with this declaration of love that I integrate all these experiences and come back to myself in all her glory.

Perhaps one day I will bring a man back into my life. If and when that time comes, his love will not complete me because I have already loved myself fully—another’s promises will not be the bedrock on which I build my life, as I have already constructed my own solid foundation.

If and when I chose to take a partner and love him, it will be with a similarly complete person who desires to share my life, not to conform and create my life around his.

 

 

Author: Nicole Pippin

Image: Flickr/Hillary Boles

Editor: Callie Rushton