To The Ones Who Choose To Stay

One of the biggest life lessons I’ve learned is that we can’t control other people’s choices. Being a naïve, wide-eyed girl, I did learn it the hard way. We can’t control who stays and who leaves. And the cynic in me is always whispering that people always leave.

I might have mentioned a few times that I am someone who gets too attached easily. Maybe because I always wanted to know people and give them a chance. Maybe that’s the reason why I suffer from separation anxiety. It breaks my heart realizing that there are people you’d get to spend days, weeks, months, years, only for them to burn the bridge and cut the ties. It was hard to know that growing up sometimes means growing apart.

Sometimes I would get that impulse to talk to someone, to reach out to them, but the anxious person in me is always afraid that I might just bother them. So I held myself back. You know, and it became another one of those relationships that ended in “we just stopped talking”. The blow of losing someone feels more intense if you have anxiety. It certainly feels like it was all my fault. And the most difficult part is learning that in what I’m going through, I’d lose parts of my support system, too. But sometimes we just have to accept that not everyone will stay. We must move forward and focus on the ones who does. Because sometimes, some people are just not worth the effort anymore.

So this is for the people who never left even If they got the chance. This is for the ones who saw the worst in me; all the mistakes, all the flaws, all the weaknesses, and still stood by my side. This is for those who held my hand when others choose to walk out of my life. This is for the people who continued to pull me back when I almost left them behind.

You are the reason why I am continuing this fight. You’re the reason why I don’t just half believe every pep talk I say to myself anymore. That for every “I’ve got this” mantra, there will be people who’ll actually agree and say “yes, you do!”. You made me want to be a much better person. You made me want to stay, too. And for that, I will forever be grateful.