This Is Me Letting You Go

I don’t want this to be so hard. But I guess it has to be when it’s something you know you need to let go of, even when it’s the last thing you want to have happened. It kind of feels like you’re giving up on something that’s always been bad for you. And no matter how many times you continue to go back to that bad thing you end up in the same situation. So, why do we keep going back to this crutch instead of learning how to live without it?

It’s the hardest lesson I’ve learned so far in my life; sometimes the things we want so bad in our life to work out don’t always lead us to the happy ending we imagined for it. We want to hold onto this thing that used to bring us so much joy or we believe still does. Maybe it’s a person whose eyes only looked at you, now they’re staring at someone new who sparks something in them you could never dig deep to find. Maybe it’s a feeling you once had for someone that got lost along the way because as you grew and learned to adapt to certain things in life, that person wilted away and showed their true colors.

We tend to want to reminiscence on moments in our lives that we wish we could freeze and live there for the rest of our lives. We don’t want to keep going forward because maybe that feeling we felt was once in a lifetime and the thought of it going away scares you. Because you don’t think you’ll ever get it back or find it again. We like talking about our past because for the most part, we know how the story ends. Sometimes we’re not so lucky and we end up with a few missing pieces that no matter how hard we try we can never figure out. So we’re left with an unsolved story that we can only somewhat patch up.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I think we can all relate to that feeling of wanting to keep something that we need to let go of. Whether that’s a friend, memory, bad habit, or a past lover who no matter how hard you try to numb the pain and move on always creeps up in the back of your mind.

It almost feels like someone is pulling you back and physically holding you by your wrists, unable and unwilling to let you keep going forward despite how hard your fingers dig into their hands or how deep the heels of your shoes leave indents in the ground. They have a hold over you that you never asked them to have, and they fill your days with tainted memories of when things used to be good between you two. Memories you want to bottle up and save for a rainy day while wrapped around a blanket with a hot coffee cup intertwined in your hands.

These memories come to you during the worst times of the day. When you’re tired from a long day only to be kept up at night from when they’d be by your side to hold you when you’d cry. Only when you go to turn over it’s just an empty side of the bed and you have both pillows underneath your head. When you’re driving and a song comes on that you both used to sing terribly to at the top of your lungs and you turn the radio off or change the station because you’re seconds away from bawling your eyes out.

It’s so damn hard to move on. It’s hard to pretend that you’re okay when all you feel is pain and utter sadness. So, just cry and let it out, you have to know that what you’re feeling is normal, and keeping it locked inside of yourself instead of admitting that you’re not fine is only going to hurt you in the long run. I don’t know why it’s so hard to let go of something that’s bad for us. I don’t know why we allow ourselves to feel this pit in our stomach for much longer than we should when whatever hurt us is going about their day without a care in the world. Meanwhile, you’re hanging on by a thread and do such a damn good job at pretending everything is fine.

But I know this, things will get better. I can’t be the one to tell you when it will, I’m still battling my own demons and it feels like forever ago it happened. But I take each day at a time and do my best to remind myself that my past mistakes and bad moments do not define me as a person. I can’t hate the person I was back then, because at that time that was what I needed in my life.

I’m thankful for everything that has happened to me. But that doesn’t mean I have to let it continue to stay in my life. And I know it can be hard to see people moving forward in their life when you feel like you’re steps behind them and frozen in place from something in your life that’s kept you there for so long.

I promise you once you learn to take that first step and let that thing or person in your life who hurt you go it’ll feel like a bright light is shining on you and only you.

I can’t wait to step out of the darkness one day, and I hope you find it within you to join me too.