How Do You Know When It Is Time To Let Someone Go?
By Michelle Small
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
They have been with you for as long as you can remember, and life without them seems near impossible. The very thought of them being gone fills you with dread because you don’t know or understand life without them. Yet, the sudden new realization that they exist to cause you suffering seems to offer a much belated invitation to a beautiful new life - a life free of back and forth ping ponging, negative energy, and unkind words. There is a small speck of light saying, come this way, leave the pain behind.
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
Is it when this tiny glimpse into possibility has you start to discover your true self? Is it when this glimpse, this small window, starts to have a ray of light spotlight the pile of bricks weighing you down that you didn’t even know was there? This now known-to-you brick pile causes you to stand up and scream, “ENOUGH!” before the next brick tossed on the pile pushes you back down.
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
Is it when you finally realize that their presence provides pain? This sudden news flash causes helpless feelings of shame and regret. Questions roll around in your brain, trying to decipher the reason they have been allowed by you to stay present in your life for so long. You have spent years in the backseat, along for the ride, getting hit again and again by red lights and stop and go traffic. Your meek voice continues to be drowned out by loud sirens and honking horns that make you jump, your heart racing with every jolt, your mind drowning in overstimulation.
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
Suddenly, there is a small break in the noise and an idea appears. You don’t have to sit in the back every second, every minute, every hour, every day. Maybe, just maybe, you can move to the driver’s seat and see how that feels? You could control the radio, put the windows down, and choose your own path and scenery to view each day.
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
You realize this choice could bring peace. It isn’t simple, or easy. It’s change, and it is hard, and you want to hide in the backseat under a blanket all day and night because the constant restart of each new battle seems to end in deflation and defeat.
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
When you work through this choice and stand up straight and say “NO!” and it feels painful, but right. When that tiny little momentary peace comes and you say - “What is this feeling? Is this what I want?” It’s a foreign feeling, and it doesn’t quite make sense, and it fills you with wonder. Is this peace? Is this letting go of the noise, the constant back and forth, the judgment, the comparison, the stolen moments of joy?
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
It’s a choice that leads to tiny moments of peace that pile together to build something beautiful, something new. It turns into a repetitive string of choices that eventually lead you to the discovery that you will be ok without this someone.
How do you know when it is time to let someone go?
You do the work, make your plan, and work your plan. And in the end, you have a brand new beginning.