It’s Hard To Watch Someone You Adore Drift Away, But You Have To Let Them Go

Life isn’t always fair, and it doesn’t always give you what you want. That can be a hard truth to accept, especially if you are a persistent and headstrong individual. It can be difficult to admit that you can’t control everything or win over everyone. It’s indescribably frustrating to find the person you want and then realize that person will never be yours.

Sometimes you may have them, for a brief moment – an hour, a day, a week, perhaps even a month or two. You bask in the heaven of finally finding your truth reflected in the mind of another human being. They get you – no need for questions, no desire to change who you are. They see you, they accept you at face value, and they enjoy your true self. It’s an exhilarating feeling, knowing that you are welcomed into someone’s heart unconditionally.

Then something changes.

You don’t know how or why at first. It’s a tiny shift, almost unnoticeable, but you feel the distance in your bones. They don’t tell you what’s happened, but you know they’re leaving you, slowly but surely. They’ve evolved, or wavered, or even chosen someone else over you. The unique spark that you felt wasn’t reciprocated or appreciated the way you had hoped. The chasm widens. You spend less time together, you talk more infrequently – you realize one day with a embarrassed sting that you’re now the only one who ever reaches out. You have to make a decision – do you keep doing so because it kills you to lose that person? Or do you release your tenuous grasp with the resigned understanding that you can’t cling to something that is already gone?

You lose sleep – you’re maddened by the idea that your person doesn’t even realize that the two of you share a rare and precious connection. You agonize over the harsh revelation that it’s not a magical bond if it’s only felt by one party. You refuse to accept that regardless of anything you do, you cannot control their feelings, their choices, or their actions.

You feel tiny inside and invisible outside. Once again, you’ve been passed over, unappreciated, wanted but not wanted quite enough. You begin to doubt yourself – to believe that there must be something wrong with you if the person you thought was the one for you decided not to choose you in return. It’s not about that, sweet being. It’s never that clear, or simple, or even rational.

It’s just that sometimes things don’t work out, and sometimes life sucks. That’s the way of the world.

Your power lies in your ability to accept and let go. The most difficult task in the world is to love without attachment and release without pain. You can’t keep someone who doesn’t want to stay, and if you’re honest with yourself, you don’t want that in your life anyway. You want them to change their minds and stay on their own … but sadly, that’s not the way it works.

Breathe. Let it be. Try your damndest to love without condition so it doesn’t hurt if you don’t get that love back. Try not to place expectations on love, and know that not everyone loves in the same way that you do. Know that if something is meant for you it will come back around, but that it usually doesn’t, and that’s alright. Relax. Take every moment as it comes. Live authentically, feel authentically, and remember that in the grand scheme of things, none of this is all that momentous.

You are going to be okay.

Repeat that to yourself until one day you smile with surprise because you finally believe that it’s true.