When I logged in to YM a few hours ago, I noticed the status message of my friend, D which read : I HATE BREAKUPS. I shot him a few words and I joked about relationships being always doomed to fail. We had a short excahnge of verbal daggers and then he left thereafter to attend a boring conference call. Then it got me thinking about the whole realtionship, breaking up and letting go process. It made me think of my own loses too.
It also came into my life that I wonder why we have to let go of things which became a part of our lives. I even asked God why He has to take away things and people really dear to us inspite Him knowing that it would wound our hearts. I just thought that it does not seem in parallel that we lose things we would really like to keep. Why can we just give away things that do not really matter to us. And so, I ask again …why? In my life, though I have come to meet sweet victory at times, I can never deny that I have had so much loses too, much more than what I gain. I have had so much pain seeing people going away; I have cried in helplessness of trying to keep things in its place despite of its necessity to go; and, I have heard much of goodbyes, so much that it caused me into phobia. In as much as I would like to keep them, is the need for me to let them go. It is hard letting go. It is so painful that I fear meeting it again.
Maybe it is true that the more you fear something, the more it haunts you. In anticipation of it, fear would never let me sleep well. It even follows me in my dreams, in my thoughts. It is so frightening.
After some time, when I have had so much goodbyes, I have come to realize what it is for. And, it is really not a cruel enemy, but a good teacher. For one thing, it makes us stronger. The more it hurts us, the stronger we get. The pain we feel when we let go of something helps us prepare for the harder tests of life. The more it comes in our way, the better we learn how to handle our feelings. The more we are exposed to it, the more we perfect it.
With goodbyes, we learn how to recognize things and give importance to them. We realize that things are not permanent and so we must take the time to enjoy what we have. We know in our minds that things are not to stay forever. We could not be happy as today as for tomorrow and we could not keep people and things that we have today until the next day. We are on a journey and the more loads we have the harder will it be for us to move on. That is why we have to unload and give away some of our possessions so that there will be enough space for greater things we might catch along the way. It is also one thing that letting go teaches us: to choose which opportunities to take and which to let go. In this test, we try to gauge things and pick those which could be helpful in our way. If we insist in keeping things we should let go, then God takes it away from us. And I tell you, it is more painful because it is sudden.
When we lose things, we become afraid of losing something again. We hide in our shells thinking that it would help us save our things. Yes it can, but we remain in the dark and we live in fear. It could never make us happy either. Isn't it a much wonderful experience reviving after a loss? After some time of hiding in our shells, we stand out to face new life. In this way, we learn how to close one door, and open another. Life's chances await those who are willing to try.
Lastly, with letting go, we learn to remember. We bank up in our memories people and things we had along the way, and which we apparently lost. Instead of taking the past as a painful experience, we reminisce it as a learning process. As we remember, we realize how helpful people and things had been. There should be no way for regrets because all it does is to downgrade our decisions from the past, which should not be. Our decisions are our choices, and what we choose is what we should stand. We should not let regrets eat up our confidence because it will only lead us to a life of agony and distress, which indeed is deranging.
Of all that we could lose, I can say that letting go of people we loved is the most painful. We may lose things, feel sad about it, but gradually forget it. But, if we lose people, everytime memory comes in, pain follows. The hurt feeling never subsides. One reason, which I think makes it easier for us to forget things than people, is the mutual love we can have with loving people. We may love things as much as we want to, but they will never love us back. They can never express their gratitude and love for us. We can always have something to replace them if we lose them. There is not much to lament upon. With people, they can love us back and that makes us happy. People could always say "thank you"; they can always say they love us; they can always say they appreciate. There can never be a happier feeling than when your effort is appreciated with the person you love. There can never be a tiring moment if you are working for the person you value most. And, there can never be a much painful feeling than losing that person you wanted to keep forever.
Acceptance is the hardest part of losing. What we can do is to think that life is all about taking and losing, of keeping and letting go. Much is to come. But one thing is for sure, there is a reason for everything. That reason maybe hard to understand, but whatever it is, we just have to believe that God takes away when He has something better to give. In our lives, goodbyes always post a turning point. Oftentimes we say goodbye to the one we really love without wanting to, but that does not mean we stop to care. Sometimes goodbye just is a painful way of saying I'll always love you.
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