Read this whenever it’s hard to move on

Everyone seems to have a different way about how long it would take to get over something.

If it’s a relationship, many say half the time. If it’s a loss, say about a year—long enough to get through every special occasion when you’re used to having them by your side.

We use expressions like “move on” and “let go” as if they were something as simple as closing a car door. We untangle our fingers and let go of whatever we’re holding — is that letting go? That is all?

I don’t think I’ve experienced a single loss in my life that I’ve overcome in time that seems to have been distributed by society as “acceptable”. And I suspect I’m not alone in this.

It’s not human nature to let go. We are, at our core, territorial creatures. We fight to keep what we love. Giving up is by no means an instinct of our race.

Because no one lets go at once. You let go once. And then you let go again. And then again and again and again.

You let someone go when you go to the supermarket but you don’t buy that spice because you know it reminds you of them. You let him/her go when you throw away that perfume that reminds you of him/her.

Sometimes you’re going to have to let a person go a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, and there’s nothing pathetic or abnormal about that. Are you human. And it’s not always as simple as making a decision and never looking back.

You are not a failure to get to some amazing place and still feel like a part of yourself is missing. Bad things don’t go away in a blink of an eye and good things don’t come without leaving at least a little bit of collateral damage. It takes time for everything to be balanced. And it should.

The truth is, none of us want to think of ourselves as works in progress. We want everything to happen instantly: Fall in love, walk away, let go of what we know we should leave in the past and move on to what comes next.

We hate the in-between spaces — the moments when we’re okay but not quite there yet. The periods when we suspect growth is happening but have nothing to show for it.

The days when everything seems to be falling into place and we still go home and cry into our pillows because there is no one to share our good fortune with.

If success is a ladder, we are eternally taking two steps forward and one step back, and that’s okay. That’s how we keep ourselves under control. It’s how we keep ourselves from exploding.

We have to be patient with ourselves as we move through the parts between where we’ve been and where we’re going.

We have to let time motivate us rather than discourage us. It’s okay not to be there yet. It’s okay to not be sure of every step you take. We don’t talk about how sometimes moving forward feels like we’re fighting every part of our baser instincts, but we should. We should talk about how growth is as painful as it is beautiful.

Because growth and letting go are so intertwined that we often only see one or the other. We forget that they can exist side by side — releasing the past while letting in the future. We forget that we have the ability to do the exact same thing. And if we stopped to think, we could realize how far we’ve come.

SEE TOO:

A letter to God from my anxiety