When love decides to walk out of your life, as hard as it may be, hold the door open for it to leave. Your natural tendency may be to grasp at what’s left of the love you once knew, that you grew so familiar with. Letting go seems painful in these moments, but I promise you that the pain will dull down if you just give it enough time. But if you choose to stubbornly hold on to love that wants to leave, the heartache will only get amplified from here on.
When love asks to leave, you let it. Even beautiful love, which made a home within you, may one day want to pack up and move out. Love that you thought would never wither away, love that you believed was here to stay, love that you invested so much of yourself into because you saw a life with this love. However, our dreams change and our desires change with them. And sometimes, this change in the other person will leave you questioning everything you shared with them. It will leave you wondering what you did to deserve to be left behind while your love decides to move on and build a different life for themselves, one without you in it.
Letting go of a good love is one of the hardest things we experience. A love that saw you for all that you are and made you feel special in all its little ways. But as hard as it may be to let go of such a love, trust me when I say it’s even harder to keep holding onto it. You will strive day after day to convince love that wants to leave of the many reasons why it should stay. It will tire you and take every ounce of emotional energy you have to prevent it from walking away. And I know that is not how you want love to feel like for either one of you.
As difficult and excruciating as it may be, find the courage to hold that door open when love asks to be let out. Real, genuine love should feel freeing. It shouldn’t feel pressured to stay in a place it doesn’t want to. It shouldn’t be manipulated into doing things it doesn’t want to. Just like you held your love so dearly up until now, it’s time to free it into being all that it wants to be for itself.
This will leave you feeling empty and lost for a while, maybe even a long while. Maybe you will carry remnants of this beautiful love with you wherever you go. But in the deepest spaces of your heart, one day you will know that setting love free was the best thing you could have done for the both of you. We are the most loved when we feel the most free—free to be ourselves, to discover our place in the world, to find our people.
Trust that when you free love to be itself, a different, more beautiful love will be able to freely find you.
