Tag: letting go

Yelly Writes

I NOW know you couldn’t

Yelly

An open letter…to someone who probably won’t ever have the opportunity, or, if I’m honest, the desire, to read anything I write. But I just to say this.

Dear You,

Whatever I expected of you, I expected because I did give you what I could and probably more than I should’ve. Because I hoped that what I gave w0uld be returned, not like a transaction but because it was how relationships should be – there is give and there is take, there is push and there is pull, and we fill the gaps because we’re a team and we help each other. We’re weak when the other is strong.

What I didn’t take into consideration was that it probably wasn’t what you were capable of or willing to give. And that’s okay. What you put me through, I’m taking as a learning experience. And boy, have I learned.

Once, a long time ago, I read the passage below from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. I fully believed that you would be the one who loved me enough to be my person this way. Imagine how much my heart broke when I was going through a difficult time and I asked you to be with me and you said you didn’t want to. I learned a lot that day. What I refused to consider at the time was that you didn’t have it in you to provide the support I needed. I know that now. And belatedly, I realise that I probably knew it then. They say hindsight is 20/20. And it is.

I hope you are well. I hope you are whole. I hope you are happy.

I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.
― Elizabeth Gilbert

Yelly Writes

Making like Elsa

Yelly

One thing that never ceases to surprise is me is how quick the passage of time is. Blink and you’ll miss it. I’ve always said that time flies, even when you’re not having fun.

I received news yesterday – I knew it was coming but I didn’t expect to receive it so soon. The quickness of receiving the news was surprising which was probably why I was unsettled when I first read the message. What quickly followed was relief…and then the feeling of “now what?”

Then, as usual, I went down the rabbit hole of thinking up possible (but very improbable) scenarios, which I’m prone to do because I’m an overthinking (work in progress yes, but still an overthinker!). But the difference is, this time, I noticed the signs and told myself to stop. After a figurative shake-it-off session, I managed to slow down the downward thought spiral.

I need to let it go. Because it’s something I can’t control. The only thing I can control is my reaction to the situation. And my course of action: move on and let it go.

@ ctto
Yelly Writes

Forgiving myself

Yelly

I have deliberately held off writing on the blog for a long time because I was dealing with a personal struggle.  I know myself well enough to know that if I allowed myself to write about the experience before I’d processed it, the entry would become a rant.  That was the last thing I wanted to do because I needed to understand how I was feeling and why I was feeling what I was feeling.  Cryptic enough?

I was going through a period of self-doubt and I was asking myself a lot of questions that demanded a lot of self-honesty, looking at myself in the mirror very critically, a lot of soul-searching and I was praying a lot about a decision that I’d made.  I felt torn between deeply regretting having to act on the decision, and knowing, with absolutely certainty, that what I’d done was the, really, the best course of action.

I’ve never really known how to cut myself off from people who affect me negatively.  I always thought that holding on and not giving up on relationships meant that you cared about the person.  I always thought that if I continued to treat the person in the way I wanted to be treated, it would eventually lead to them doing the same thing.  I was, also, never a quitter.  I never gave up on things, tasks, and most especially people.  I am a Christian, with my faith so steeped in my life and my psyche that it was difficult to switch off the “not giving up on people” because God never gave up on me.  So stepping away was not an option.

Also, I can’t remember where I learned it, whether I heard it from someone or I read it somewhere -that what you despise in others is what you hate in yourself.  I wondered whether in this situation, it was the case?  I had to ask myself that several times.  Was the negativity I was feeling a reflection of how I was feeling about something in my life.

I kept asking myself, what lesson was I supposed to learn from this experience?

After all that thinking, praying, reading and soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that I needed to learn to look at the unhealthy patterns in certain relationships and learn to put a stop to it.  To learn to extricate myself from the situation so that I would be set free – from the negativity, from the unkind thoughts, from the self-doubt, from the annoyance.  My response to this negative situation was eating away at me.  I didn’t like how I was reacting.

I was struggling to find what the Christian response was to this situation.  Then I read something that Debbie McDaniel wrote.  She said: “God’s greatest desire is to set us free…and what propels that change is for some brave soul to be willing to say “Stop, no more.” One who will choose what is better…and set boundaries.”  Because, in the end, if you remove yourself from the situation, the negativity stops, the unchristian thoughts stop.  Because in the end, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind…to everyone, including yourself.

Maybe one day, when the opportunity presents itself, I will tell this person how much their behaviour has affected me.  Because I believe authentic relationships require honesty.

One day, maybe.

Until that day comes, I will tell myself that I did what I could in my position.  And while it is still a challenge, I am going to have to forgive myself for walking away.  Because at the end of the day, I wanted to stop myself from being mean and unkind, if not in deed, it was certainly in thought.  For now, that will have to be enough.