We all need space. Sometimes, the best thing we can give to another person...is space. Space to think often gives me opportunity to feel. Sometimes what I feel gives me a chance to think about something. Space creates health; constant filling of it does not. It can lead us somewhere that is often neglected within us...to a needed grieving or to an important gratitude.
I realized today that I was hoping for something deeper with my wife in some recent interactions or lack of them. I was reaching for conclusions that would urge me to 'address' it with her. But, my instincts were nudging me back...toward not filling the space with my needs. A bit later she said she has really been preoccupied with news of her father's illness. I was shocked...certainly for him, but also for what I had been ready to do...to get something that I wanted. I wasn't considering that what I was feeling from her really had nothing to do with me, as I had suspected. I was grateful for the space I had chosen in my waiting, for her sake and for mine.
She needed some space. She needed for me not to fill hers with me. I needed the space, too.
Give yourself the gift of space. Give it to someone else.
