Letting Go

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to come clean and admit that I was originally going to write this at least two weeks ago. I've tried to get it done several times during that span, in fact, only to get so frustrated and upset that I ultimately and repetitively scrapped it in favor of less emotional topics.

And that essentially sums up how difficult this concept is for me.

When it comes down to the things and people which I have the strongest emotional connections with, I can't bring myself to let go and move on in a new direction of my life.

Trust me, it's not for lack of trying, because I have. I've tried everything I can think of and when I think I'm at a place where it feels like I have started letting go, I grab on even tighter. And even though my friends keep trying to tell me that I'll be okay if I do it, that my world won't fly apart and it won't kill me, I just can't.

I can't for two reasons, the anger I feel in seeing others move on from me with such ease that it seems like they don't care at all, and because I'm afraid to think of what I will be without the emotions that tie me to those people.

I haven't said this to anyone, but for weeks now, my heart has felt like it's been in a complete knot because the rational, logical part of my brain understands that there is a certain set of emotions I have chained to someone, and I have to let them go. I simply don't have any choice anymore because they've moved on, whether I like it or not. Yet the emotional side of me, which feels things so intensely that I can barely stand it half the time, is yelling at me constantly that under no circumstances do I dare attempt it.

That if I do, they will never come back and the feelings I have will never come back to me in any other way, no matter how badly I want them to.

There is a rather pretentious verse I've often heard people tell me over the years, "If you love someone, set them free, and if they come back to you, they're yours. If they don't, then they never were."

I've always hated it because I was brought up with the understanding that if you loved someone...truly loved someone, then you fight with every ounce of your being to hang on to them because they could be gone in an instant. So you fight with absolute ferocity and show them how much they mean to you, how much you care and why they matter so much.

And what my life ultimately became reinforced that train of thought in me over and over again as I watched the people I loved most leave, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop them.

Some did of their own choosing and some I drove away, but each time made me so scared to let it happen again that now I honestly cannot imagine how much it's going to hurt this time as well.

But it doesn't change the fact that I have to.

I don't want to let go. I don't want to walk away. It is antithetical to everything I am as a person and what I've ever learned. And what has been keeping me up at night all week, putting nightmares back in my head and making me so upset has been a question I don't know how to answer.

Who am I now and am I really going to be okay?