Today I dropped JJ off at the airport.
And I have a deep sadness in my body.
The drive there was mostly quiet.
Not uncomfortable silence.
Just the kind of silence that happens when both people know something significant is happening and there really isn’t much left to say.
Every once in a while one of us would speak, and then we’d fall back into silence.
Somewhere during that drive, I said to her:
“You know what, babe? Just know I’m always here if you need anything. Just let me know.”
And JJ said:
“Just know I’m not abandoning you.”
She chose those words intentionally.
She knows my origin story.
And something interesting happened.
My mind immediately went:
I know that.
Almost like, Of course you’re not abandoning me.
But my body had a completely different reaction.
Because now I had the rest of that drive to sit with those words.
Behind my sunglasses and baseball cap, I could feel the tears building at the corners of my eyes.
Every once in a while I would subtly wipe them away.
And I started wondering:
Who is hurting right now?
Is this the 65-year-old man saying goodbye to the woman he has spent 26 years beside?
Or is this the little boy who remembers what it felt like when the people he loved left and he stayed behind?
Maybe it’s both.
And suddenly I understood why my body had been bracing for this moment before I even knew what the moment was going to feel like.
When I was six or seven years old, my parents left my sister and me in Jamaica with our paternal grandparents while they returned to Los Angeles.
My dad had to come back to take his dental boards.
My younger brother, who was still a baby, went with them.
My sister and I stayed.
Now, my adult mind understands there were reasons.
There were logistics.
There were plans.
I’m sure my parents told us they would be back.
But a six- or seven-year-old nervous system doesn’t necessarily understand logistics.
It understands absence.
It understands:
They left.
And then life gave that little boy responsibility.
My grandmother was a full-blown diabetic and had a tendency to go into diabetic comas.
My mother explained to my sister and me that if Grandma ever looked like she was sleeping and we couldn’t wake her up, we needed to put sugar in her mouth and go get a neighbor.
And lo and behold, one day that happened.
My grandmother wouldn’t wake up.
My recollection is that my sister panicked and ran next door.
And I remembered the sugar.
I put sugar in my grandmother’s mouth.
And she came back.
Once again, the little boy became responsible.
Someone leaves.
Something happens.
Colin holds it together.
That seems to be a thread running through so much of my life.
And today, decades later, the woman who has been beside me for 26 years gets on a plane.
And what remains behind?
The dogs.
The home.
The business.
The cars.
The responsibilities.
And Colin.
So maybe my body recognized the pattern before my mind even finished explaining it.
That is why JJ’s words mattered so much.
“Just know I’m not abandoning you.”
My mind knew that.
But my body heard something different.
My body heard:
I know what this may be touching in you.
I know where this pain comes from.
And I am not doing that to you.
That is an incredibly tender thing to say to someone.
And what matters is that I did not turn this into:
“JJ abandoned me.”
She didn’t.
I’m not making her responsible for an old wound.
I’m recognizing that an old wound got touched.
That is different.
And then there is the sadness itself.
Deep, deep sadness.
No anger.
No bitterness.
No blame.
Just sadness.
The whole way to the airport I could feel my body holding back tears.
The corners of my eyes would water.
I would wipe them away subtly behind my sunglasses and ball cap.
A 65-year-old man sitting there grieving and not entirely knowing which part of himself is grieving.
Is it the husband?
Is it the seven-year-old?
Is it the man who has spent nearly his entire adult life in partnership?
Is it the protector?
Is it the part of me that built so much of my identity around being needed?
Maybe all of them.
And maybe this isn’t one clean grief.
Maybe it’s layered grief.
I’m grieving what was.
I’m grieving what mattered.
I’m grieving a role I loved playing.
I’m grieving the certainty of knowing who I was in relation to another person.
I’m grieving for a little boy who didn’t understand why people left.
I’m grieving for the man who spent so much of his life being strong before he ever learned how to feel safe.
And at the same time, there is no bitterness.
There is sadness.
There is gratitude.
There is reverence.
There is love.
There is even excitement for JJ.
Because whatever happens from here does not erase what we have shared.
This woman has been one of the most powerful influences in my life for over two decades.
She’s been there through addiction.
Through broken trust.
Through business dreams.
Through depression.
Through healing.
Through breakdowns.
Through breakthroughs.
Through all the versions of me I’ve had to become just to survive.
And I’ve been there through her journey too.
So no matter where this road leads, I cannot pretend this wasn’t sacred.
It was sacred.
And now, for the first time in 26 years, we are truly walking separate roads.
Not in anger.
Not in war.
Not in hatred.
But in truth.
And truth still hurts sometimes.
What really struck me today is this:
I have spent so much of my life choosing other people.
Choosing responsibility.
Choosing protection.
Choosing provision.
Choosing being the strong one.
Choosing being the one who handles it.
And today I had to face a painful realization:
I have rarely chosen myself.
Not fully.
Not cleanly.
Not without guilt.
And Becoming Colin is forcing me to sit with that.
Because this journey isn’t really just about JJ getting on a plane.
It’s about me staying.
Staying with myself.
Staying with the sadness.
Staying with the little boy.
Staying with the grief.
Staying with the uncertainty.
Staying in my body instead of escaping it.
I’ve spent a lifetime becoming necessary.
Necessary to my sister.
Necessary to my grandmother.
Necessary to my partners.
Necessary to my children.
Necessary to my clients.
Necessary to my businesses.
Necessary to the people I love.
And now life is asking me a completely different question:
Who are you when nobody needs you to hold everything together?
That is uncharted territory for me.
Maybe that is why choosing yourself can feel so destabilizing.
Because if you learned that love means responsibility, choosing yourself can initially feel selfish.
It can even feel like abandonment.
But I’m beginning to understand the difference between being loving and being indispensable.
Those are not the same thing.
I can love deeply without being responsible for everyone else’s emotional survival.
I can care without carrying everything.
I can be present without disappearing inside someone else’s needs.
I can be devoted without abandoning myself.
And I’m seeing that same thing in my body.
This is the first time I am rebuilding physically from a place of weakness without first hating the body I’m rebuilding.
In the past, transformation often began with disgust.
Nothing fits.
I don’t like what I see.
Fix it.
Change it.
Rebuild it.
Prove something.
This time, I’m not beginning from hatred.
I’m beginning from care.
This body has been through surgeries, infection, antibiotics, sleep deprivation, loss of strength, and all kinds of physical stress.
And instead of looking at it and saying:
“What the hell happened to you?”
I’m learning to say:
“Let me take care of you.”
That is a very different relationship with my body.
And the same thing is happening emotionally.
In the past, sadness might have been something to suppress.
Something to outwork.
Something to think my way around.
Something to regulate as quickly as possible so I could get back to functioning.
Today, I’m doing something different.
I receive.
I allow.
I let go.
That may be the real transformation.
Not that sadness disappears.
Not that the abandonment wound disappears.
Not that grief becomes pretty or easy.
But I am no longer treating emotion like an interruption.
I am letting it move.
Becoming Colin is definitely the road less traveled.
Every day is new.
Every day I’m finding out something new about myself.
I’m feeling something new.
I’m allowing more.
I’m becoming more present.
More connected to myself.
More connected to life.
More connected to feeling.
And today, what I’m connected to is sadness.
Deep, deep sadness.
Sadness for what was.
Sadness for what mattered.
Sadness for the little boy who felt the same pain and had no idea what he had done wrong.
And sadness for the man who can finally sit with that little boy and say:
“You’re okay.”
The little boy doesn’t have to be shut down anymore.
He doesn’t have to be told to toughen up.
He doesn’t have to make sense of everything.
He doesn’t have to become useful.
He doesn’t have to rescue anybody.
He gets to feel.
And the man gets to sit with him.
Maybe that is what choosing myself really looks like now.
Not escaping the sadness.
Not fixing it.
Not abandoning myself because the feeling is uncomfortable.
Choosing myself now is not an act of running away.
It is an act of staying.
And maybe that is the real reversal of the abandonment wound.
Because this morning, the external story could easily be:
“The woman I love got on a plane.”
But the internal story may actually be:
“I stayed.”
I stayed with myself.
I stayed with the sadness.
I stayed with the little boy.
I stayed with the tired body.
I stayed with the uncertainty.
I stayed with what I felt instead of leaving myself because it was uncomfortable.
So now I’m going home.
I’m going to be with the dogs.
I’m going to put on some music.
I’m going to sit in the feeling.
I’m going to let the tears flow.
No more stuffing.
No more pushing down.
No more pretending I’m fine when I’m not.
I receive.
I allow.
I let go.
And if the sadness is here today, then today I honor it.
Just for today.
And if it comes back tomorrow?
Then I honor it again.
Just for today then.
Much love.
Namaste.
Colin F. Watson