It’s Okay To Push People Away
By Daphne Sze
We’re so used to pushing people away. We drive them away, only to protect ourselves — those walls of imperfection peeps beneath the silhouette of a sturdy barrier. We don’t entertain them because we’re tired of getting hurt, we’re tired of letting people in our old, worn out and battered hearts. Worst of all, we keep them out because we don’t want them to get the best of us. We barely let anyone in because we know how bad it is to have a part of you taken away – and this scares us most.
We push people away, because we want a collateral for the damage they would cause – that being their ability to wait and be patient. We slowly test their interest towards us as Time plays its own surprises. We slow them down, in the hopes of getting to know them better. We stop them, if we should, to tell them we’re not easy, because truth be told, we’re scared and we’re naïve, yet we wanted to take chances. It’s like standing in between liking and rejecting — confused and unsettling, like a force field you gravitate towards to, without any battle plan in mind. There’s this inner voice that urges you to take the fall, yet your brain doesn’t comprehend these signals. With mixed emotions on tow, we resort to the easy way out and that is to drive them away.
It’s okay to drive them away, to see how far they’re willing to stay, because people come and go. The most important people in your life stay put even at the midst of terror and confusion. They see you at your best and at your worst, but they never judge the way you do things. They will never question your decisions, nor pin you down with petty issues because they know you better. It’s okay to veer away from them, because we need our own time to find ourselves lost in a familiar place. We will think and rethink our decisions, find our purpose and goals in life, because we have to know ourselves first, before we can share ourselves with others. The best people will allow us to get lost and find ourselves; they will assure us that we can always go back to the people we find “home” in. Most important of all, it’s okay to push them away, because people with the purest intentions will pull you back in, every time you choose to evict them out of your life. They will wait for the right time you’re ready to share yourself with others, it doesn’t matter how long; and until that time when you’ve defeated your demons, they’ll welcome you with open arms – only then can you say that you’re willing to bring your walls down and let them in.
As humans, we’re capable of loving, caring and destroying, just as much as we’re given the liberty to be part of someone else’s life or not. We can’t just let everyone in, so choose wisely, because there’s a reason we always hold back and that is to protect ourselves and make sure the people who are with us right now are here to stay – for a long while.