When I Am No Longer Central

February, 2026

 

Sometimes life shifts.

A place we once held in someone’s life changes.

We are no longer the center of another person’s daily orbit.

At first that can feel like loss.

But sometimes something else reveals itself.

 

If I am no longer central

in another human being’s life,

if I am no longer the primary one

in someone’s daily orbit,

then what?

 

The morning light.

The dark night.

 

Kaya.

Sonata.

Everyone I know.

 

The ocean, the wind, the changing sky.

My beautiful house and the silence inside it.

My sittings.

My teachings.

The people who come and sit with me.

 

Beginnings.

Endings.

 

Grief when it comes like a wave.

Joy when it rises unexpectedly.

Anger,

reactivity,

the shadows that still live in me.

 

This unfathomable mystery,

this incarnation I cannot grasp,

this body aging and changing,

this breath moving in and out

without asking me.

 

Somewhere along the way

I realize

 

I have become a lover.

 

Of life.

Of what is.

 

I become a lover of myself,

not in pride,

not in performance,

but in non-judgment.

No inner separation.

No inner struggle.

 

If I am not chosen,

I choose life.

 

If I am not central,

I am love.

 

Love is the lover.

 

I have become a lover,

not needing to be mirrored to exist,

not needing to be central to feel alive,

because that is all there is.

 

Sometimes when we are no longer the center of someone’s orbit, it feels like something has ended.

But it is also an invitation.

An invitation to love life itself.