The Cutting...

We all have to do it from time to time.  Cut people we care about out of our lives.  Remove then with distance, a blow up, a meltdown, a silent retreat or a slow removal of self.  It is never easy regardless of the manner of delivery of the cut out.  Moving on is required, but often, feels ill timed.

My cutting process started in 2015.  I didn’t know that leaving my marriage would begin a process of great development for me.  I didn’t know that leaving that relationship would fundamentally alter and change me so much that there would be a landslide cutting process for the next 10 years.  I didn’t know, I mean, how could I have known?

And I had some pretty huge losses.  People I loved dearly. People that were so important to me.  People who I believed loved me and cared for me, except, in reality, they just didn’t.  Or they cared more about themselves...or they just weren’t capable of caring for anyone, me included.

The first cut was the deepest.  Leaving that marriage, disrupting my children’s lives, hurting him, admitting I had failed at something I didn’t intend to fail in was life altering.  It was a hard blow, even though I was the one that wanted it...I have never regretted my departure, but I have regretted how my decision affected my children, my parents and my ex.  I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but staying meant that I would be hurting me forever and as much as I didn’t want to hurt anyone else, I just couldn’t cut the deal where I kept them relatively peaceful but hurt myself forever.  Once upon a time I might have cut that deal but those days were done, and I knew it.

Since then I have cut a lot of people off and out of my life.  Some might even say I have been pretty ruthless about the whole endeavor.  And there had to be a level of ruthlessness to it, I suppose.  It was me or them so often and have spent a lifetime of choosing them, I had to change things up and, in so doing, changed myself and all of my actions regarding relationships.

Since the first major cut, I have made a lot more of them.  And I have been told, repeatedly, by well intentioned, if misinformed people, not to cut someone out or off.  But I have rarely listened to them and have, instead, made the cut and then moved the fuck on.  I am not willing to sacrifice my own happiness and well being for anyone anymore.  Add value, be a grown up, deal with your shit and treat me the way you want to be treated, if you can’t do that, then you just are gonna have to go. Sorry, not sorry.

Cutting someone out of your life is never easy and there are always lingering doubts about the course of action you chose.  But so far, all I can say is that I don’t miss any of the people I cut.  Sometimes, I feeling a longing, but that is usually for the people I wished they were, not the people they actually were.  I have learned through this cutting process that I can trust my intuition, I can trust myself and it is my job to ensure that I am cared for, loved and healing myself.

So today, when the time comes, I just cut.  I no longer have to run...because I have become a person I can trust with my heart, soul and life.  When you have become the person you need most in this life, then who you allow close to you, fundamentally and forever changes, for the better, in my experience.

So, if you find yourself wondering if you should make the cut, spend some time thinking through what life would be like without that person in your life, and if you come up with barely any good stuff, cut and move the fuck on.  Cutting out and off has become one of the best and kindest things I have done for myself...

Again, still...