The Truth About Opening Up That Nobody Ever Tells You

Unexpected people will come at unexpected moments in our lives.

Everyday, we convince ourselves that we can live independently—responsible for our own growth, happiness, and success. We convince ourselves that we can depend on no one else but ourselves to pick us up when we’re down. Only we have the capacity to show care and appreciation of ourselves. Only we can truly understand ourselves and know what’s best for us. And there comes a point when we’re actually close to believing these, but then unexpected people will unexpectedly come in and shatter everything that we were so close to believing.

We will slowly let them in—depending on them to always be there for everything happening in our lives. These people will know the right words to say and the right things to do. They will gain our trust—make us open up—as quickly as how they came in to our lives. They will talk to us everyday, make us feel less alone, and assure us that we will always have someone to listen and understand us as long as we have them.

And we will fall for it.

True enough our days became better. Life had more meaning. Just as how these people invested their time to us, we also did the same, maybe even more. We invested our time, care, and efforts to also make these people’s days better. We always lent an to listen to all of their stories in life. We celebrated with them when they accomplish something while cheered them up when they felt like giving up. We felt sad when they’re going through hardships and challenges.

All of these made us vulnerable, and they say that having deep relationships with our loved ones can only be formed by allowing ourselves to become vulnerable, by exposing ourselves to them, by breaking down the walls around us. It’s supposed to be a good thing, but what they don’t tell you is that it’s not as simple as it seems.

One day, we’ll just wake up and realize how foolish we were for letting ourselves believe in this delusion. We’ve fallen prey into thinking that we’re entitled to anything in this world—time, love, care, affection, understanding, etc. We think that the universe owes us one when life is being unfair to us, but the truth is: it doesn’t.

These people that promised to stay will leave. May it be because they’ve found a new set of friends, they’ve reunited with people from their past, or they’ve just felt like leaving, the point is: A lot can really happen and change in just a few months, weeks, or even days. Everyone that comes to our lives is only temporary. And what’s worse is we can’t really do anything about it. We let them in, opened up to them, and made ourselves vulnerable only to be left hanging. Unfortunately, we’ll just have to suck it up, go back to living our own separate, independent lives, and move on.

We will forgive these people, but it will be hard to forget. Just as we will never forget that they had been our best friends and companions at a certain point in our lives, so will we never forget the hole they left in our world—how they’ve left us broken and disappointed—because the scratches given by friends hurt more than wounds inflicted by enemies.

And maybe, at the back of our minds we have no one else to blame but ourselves. We knew exactly what we were getting in to. We knew exactly how things would end up—how these people would eventually leave—but we took the risk, knowing that there was a price to pay for. The only detail missing was when it would happen, and now that it did come, we know exactly that the most logical thing to do is to let go and just be thankful for all the memories that will continue to haunt us until we decide to take a risk again.

Nevertheless, we can still smile and be thankful for everything that happened. We can still realize that them leaving was for our own good because if these people had not left any sooner, we would’ve fallen deeper into the delusion we were in, making it harder for us to climb out and save ourselves.