Sometimes The People We Care About The Most Are Temporary, And That’s Okay

Not everyone who comes into our lives is meant to stay forever.

It’s not something we typically want to hear, but it’s a fundamental truth. A difficult one to swallow. Because as human beings, we care so much. We form bonds, make attachments. We have too many feelings. We hold on for as long as we can. Even when letting go is the right thing, the only thing, that can be done.

Maybe it’s so hard to let go of people, even the ones we know are bad for us, because we insert parts of ourselves into the ones we truly care about. We take our deepest pains and decide to share them with the ones we love. We invite these people in. Take them by the hand and say, “I will show you all the things I hide from everyone else.”

And that’s huge. Monumental, even. The fact that we allow that level of insight into our souls for a select few. That we find it in our hearts to trust, even with the knowledge that those people can one day hurt us. We do this all even while we know, logically, that humans have the ability to hurt, to carve wounds so deep that we feel like we’ll never recover.

But the fact that we’ve been hurt yet choose to love again is humanity. And sometimes we let this consume us, this idea of love. We think that if it feels so right, those people must be meant to stick by us for a lifetime. Because we’ve trusted them with everything we have; we can’t imagine, don’t want to imagine, a betrayal of our fragility that huge and unforgivable.

But life isn’t easy. Neither is love.

As we continue to grow, we learn multitudes. We realize that the ones we let into our hearts aren’t always forever. That most of the time it’s no ones fault when things don’t work out. And it hurts to feel those secret parts of you, the ones you never wanted to share with anyone else, be given back. It’s easy to be embarrassed. To chastise yourself for believing that anyone would ever want ownership over those broken parts.

But not everyone can be permanent, no matter how badly we may want them to stay. That doesn’t make them bad people, just as their leaving doesn’t make you unworthy of love. It just means that some things aren’t meant to last.

And when you really think about it, there are so many people in this world. So many that we can’t all possibly flow in the same direction. Life is filled with so many unpredictable variables. People are flung randomly into our path all the time. Sometimes the timing is off. Sometimes circumstances change. Old feelings morph into new ones. New people enter while others simultaneously make their exit.

But regardless, days keep ending and starting anew. The world keeps turning. Life goes on.

We’ve all felt that pain of someone’s absence. That crushing feeling against our lungs, the seeming lack of air. That impending sense that it was somehow our fault. But the point is we do our best with what we’re given at the time. Life is mostly just a weird string of events that coincide with each other while we try to figure out what the hell we’re doing.

So yes, some people are temporary, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t teach you something important. It doesn’t mean the relationship was for nothing. Everything is a lesson in this life. Every happy memory, every unbearable moment. We teach each other things without meaning to. We learn from each other. Sometimes we move on because it’s the best, the only, thing that we can do.

People can be temporary, but love continues to circulate like energy. The feelings find a way back to us. New people come along. We break. We mend.

That’s one thing that’s not temporary; the healing.

The healing, the moving on, it’s just one more lesson we’re able to take with us wherever we go.