learning to let go

Learning to let go is something I never really understood until I had to do it myself. used to think letting go meant forgetting someone or suddenly stopping yourself from caring about something , I thought it was supposed to happen like a switch, one day you care and the next day you do not. But it does not really work that way , Sometimes you can let go of a person and still remember them. You can move on from a situation and still think about what could have been different I think letting go is more about accepting that something is no longer meant to stay in your life, even when a part of you still wants it to The hardest part is accepting that you cannot always get the ending you wanted. There are people we wish would stay, friendships we wish had lasted longer, places we wish we could return to and moments we wish we could experience one more time. We keep going back to these memories because they feel safer than accepting that they are over. I have done that too. I have reread old conversations, looked at old pictures and thought about how things used to be. Sometimes I would wonder what would have happened if I had said something differently or reacted differently. But after a point, thinking about the past does not change it. It only keeps you stuck in a version of your life that does not exist anymore. I think that is what makes letting go so painful. You are not only letting go of a person or a situation, you are also letting go of the future you imagined with it. 
You might have imagined where you would be, who you would become, or what your life would look like, and suddenly you have to imagine something completely different . It is scary because the unknown feels much harder than something familiar, even if that familiar thing was hurting you. Sometimes we hold onto things simply because we are afraid of having nothing to hold onto. But slowly I have started realizing that holding on is not always the same as loving. Sometimes holding on is just being afraid. Letting go does not mean that what happened was meaningless. It means you are choosing not to let something from your past control everything that comes after it , There are things I still miss, and I think that is okay. I do not want to pretend that I never cared just because I have moved forward. Some memories can remain beautiful without needing to become part of your present. Maybe that is the healthiest way to look at the past. You can appreciate what something gave you without needing it back. You can be grateful for a person and still understand that they are no longer meant to walk beside you. Learning to let go is probably something I will have to learn many times in life , Every time I think I have finally understood it, something new comes along that teaches me again. But maybe that is the point.  Life keeps changing, people change, and we change with them. We cannot carry everything with us forever.  Some things have to be left behind so that our hands are free to hold what comes next.




















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