Know When To Let Go
I walked into an office of a client to pick up a document for my boss, unsuspecting, and unprepared, but there he was, an ex from my past years at the reception, with a suit, and the dashing smile I remember clearly.
I stopped walking, my feet’s glued to the floor, irresponsive to the signal my brain was transmitting, urging me to take a step.
My heart was churning, scrambling for anything to hold on to, and devising the best way to approach that huge desk and look him in the eye.
The separation was amicable, but not friendly. He saw something in me that I didn’t reciprocate. He wanted more than I could give; it wasn’t our fault, we shouldn’t never have moved passed friendship.
He looked up from his computer screen as soon the lady in blue before me left, and froze. We both stood stock still until the whirring of the telephone broke the telepathic hold, our minds had on us.
As soon as the spell was broken, my legs found rhythm again and I approached carefully. It has been one year after the separation, and frankly, I was expecting him to still be in this city; he had all these big plans to leave for better opportunities.
We exchanged light pleasantries, and I willed my racing heart to be still as I stated my mission and whom I wanted to see. I was told the boss was in a meeting and I had to wait.
Oh wow.. I had time to kill and It would be awkward to just take a seat and stare at white ceiling, and chandelier lights or memorize the colors and paintings on the pale colored walls.
I was apprehensive and jittery, cracking my knuckles nervously. He kept stealing glances at me, watching me with his peripheral vision, gauging my reaction to his presence.
He knew I wasn’t over the separation. How could I be? He didn’t give any explanation as to why we weren’t a right fit. Just mumbled something about wanting different things.
He spoke first.
“You know there’s no rule of law that says not to keep a cordial relationship with one’s ex”, he said to me, “We make things difficult when we do not know if something is right for us or wrong”.
What do you even mean by that I asked clearly not following his line of thought. I was still hurting from the separation, nitpicking the moments from time to time, assessing to see where the all stitch can loose.
“You are an amazing woman, but that relationship was not meant for both of us, so I did the hard thing, and broke it off”, he told me.
In essence, he saved us from a rocky ride into the jaws of destruction, regret and anguish.
Why did I digress a little with the story? It was to make a salient point that we ignore, and take for granted. It was to chisel down the reason why many individuals are stuck and unmoving.
That point is: Know When To Let Go, because everything is not for you.
Countless times, we are hell bent on understanding the reasons why certain situations, engagements, appointments, endeavors and commitments don't work out, that we fail to look at the lessons it was trying to teach us, and move on to better things; reinvest our energies in more activities until we find that right fit.
The shocking thing remains that, If we hadn’t broken our relationship off when we did, and analyzed and patched our way through; It could have taken a dazzling wedding, and two kids to realize this Same fact, at which point, it would be too late, and too complicated to end things.
It is absolutely, one hundred percent human to want to succeed. I mean, who doesn’t?, but trying too hard on something that wasn’t meant for you, is a to ta waste of time, energy and resources, that could be channeled elsewhere to achieve greater results.
This applies to all aspect of our lives and in all situations. It is a recurring cycle that sneaks up on us and hold us in it’s claws.
Some might want to know; how do you discover what doesn’t work for you?
It could happen in a series of ways. It could come through rejections, disappointments, failed attempts, inconsistency and personal intuition, but not limited to these listed items.
It could take the shape of anything or anyone, but it is always linked to something we want most dearly. Holding to something you don’t care about makes absolutely no sense, so there wouldn’t be any cause for alarm.
It is quite harder to do so for the things we have sacrificed a lot for. Therefore, there is a seventy percent tendency to have that salient viper rear it’s ugly head, and hypnotize us.
Letting go is hard, and not meant for the weak minded. You have to be strong, determined, and courageous enough to fight the biting urge to hold on a dying endeavor. Visualize it as a threat to your growth, both personal, and otherwise. Take it out from it’s roots, and toss it into the thrash can, then find pick another endeavor, and rebuild.
Nothing surpasses the exhilarating feeling of triumph; but you cannot get there by holding back on dead dreams.
The words of my ex, calmed my nerves enough to realize we had something great as friends before it all turned to muss when we became a couple.
It wasn’t hard to fall back into an exciting conversation about life, and our journeys so far, new dilemmas’ in our lives, and general discussions outside our personal lives.
The secretary, walked out from a fancy door behind, approached me, and said the boss was ready to see me. I picked up my manila folder, bag and can of bottled water, where they laid, forgotten. I left the reception area with the secretary leading the way.
That incident reshaped my mentality on how to view loss. It didn’t mean, I had to crawl into a space, and die. It actually taught me that letting go was for my own good.
I am healing, but have moved on. I am fighting, and won’t stop until I find that which I mine.
