Quicksand

There is a line from The Unbearable Lightness of Being that has resonated with me for most of my adult life:

“Betrayal means breaking ranks and breaking off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown”.

That line came back to me during an ecstatic dance beneath a full moon. 

Usually, during the slower parts of the music, I spend a lot of time in stillness. Eyes closed. Breathing. Listening to whatever wants to emerge. Sometimes I lie on the floor and let my limbs drift through the air in slow, unhurried movements.

But this time, I couldn’t be still.

As the music built, my body demanded movement.

At first, the movement felt strange and almost theatrical. Not performative in the sense that I was dancing for anyone else, but performative in the way that grief sometimes is. Like my body was acting out a story before my mind understood what it was trying to say.

I found myself moving as though I were trapped in quicksand.

Every gesture felt heavy. Every step felt difficult.

My arms reached upward while the rest of me struggled against an invisible force pulling me down. 

Again and again, I found myself trying to free something.

As the music intensified, the dance began to change. The struggle gave way to release. I started shedding weight. Shaking things off. Throwing things away. Peeling away layers that no longer belonged to me.

The word that kept surfacing was freedom. Not sexuality. Not relationships. Not healing.

Freedom. 

I wanted lightness. I wanted movement. I wanted air.

By that point in my life, I had spent years doing the work of building secure attachment. Of learning how to stay. Learning how to repair. Learning how to consider another person’s needs alongside my own.

Learning how to build a “we” without immediately reaching for the exit whenever things became uncomfortable. 

And I know it’s good work. It’s necessary work. Work that has made me a better partner and I hope, a better human being. 

But somewhere in the middle of all that growth, another question has quietly followed me:

How much of myself am I supposed to give away?

When does compromise become self-abandonment?

How do I love someone deeply without losing the parts of myself that make me feel alive?

I don’t think that these questions are unique to me. At the heart of every long term relationship, is a tension between attachment and individuation.

We want closeness. We want belonging. We want to be chosen. 

And we also want freedom. We want room to breathe. We want to remain fully ourselves.

Sometimes those desires sit comfortably beside one another.

Sometimes they feel impossible to reconcile.

As I danced, memories from different chapters of my life drifted through my mind.

Relationships where I became smaller. Relationships where I chased freedom at the expense of stability. Relationships where I mistook intensity for liberation. Relationships where I confused self sacrifice with love. 

None of those stories felt fully true anymore.

What I felt on the dance floor wasn’t a desire to leave.

It wasn’t even really about Caleb. It was the part of myself that was always drawn to lightness.

About the part of me that has always chased lightness. The part that falls in love with possibilities.  The part that wants to wander. The part that wants to say yes before asking permission. The part that resists being pinned down. The part that worries that commitment might someday become a cage.

For almost two hours, I danced with her. Not trying to fix her. Not trying to shame her. Just allowing her to exist. Allowing her to take up space. Allowing her to speak.

When the evening ended, I drove home feeling raw and open.

Caleb was asleep on the couch, his glasses slipped sideways off of his face.

He looked so peaceful.

For nearly two hours I danced like a woman trying to free herself. I had clawed my way out of imaginary quicksand. I had shed weight. I had reached for lightness. I had reached for freedom.

And then I saw him.

I stood there for a moment, looking at the man that I loved. 

And all I wanted to do was kiss him.

Maybe that has always been the question. 

Not whether I was capable of freedom. 

Not whether I was capable of love. 

But whether I could learn to hold both at the same time.