Leaving & Letting

People will leave you. Now that we have that understanding, we can stop clinging to them like they belong to us anyhow. You will need to come to a radical acceptance that there is nothing you can do when someone has chosen to leave. These people may still be sleeping in your bed. Still calling you in the morning to check in. But you can feel it. The detached and distracted interactions. The raw feeling of needs unmet.  The overpowering feeling of giving and giving and receiving next to nothing in return.  I was told one time that the best way to have a long term relationship was to show up with the intention to give more than you get. To always stay focused on what you can bring to that connection. 

Well, I have to say at 41 years old, that isn’t the best advice. If I look closely at the relationships of people who operate in this way, you can see the angst, the exhaustion and worst of all the resentment that builds a little overtime until, although we may still be doing things for our partner, communicating with them kindly, showing up for their wins and loses; there is a noticeable undertone of bitterness. 

We’d all like to give selflessly, and be so full that our overflow is plenty to fill the cups of all the people we love. We’d like to but we can’t. Not without the highest price anyone can pay to keep a connection alive; self-betrayal. We can’t keep betraying ourselves to avoid abandonment. To avoid pain. I’m guilty of trying to shove my pain and fear to deepest darkest parts of my heart, while performing so that people I love won’t leave. I’ve slowly unlearned this crazy making and have learned that in order to hold onto myself, sometimes I need to let go of anything or anyone that asks me to prioritize them over me. 

You matter. Give, for sure. Love hard. But don’t pay a price you can’t afford. People will leave and it won’t be because you didn’t do enough. It will be because, the time has come. Maybe they will leave and you will cry but I am certain you will find, that you just made space for the people who are skilled in reciprocity to come towards you. Now that there is room for them, they will appear.  Let the first person that shows up, be you. Xoxo