When People Leave
The moment someone special leaves your life, you’re struck with feeling. Whether it be anger, confusion, pain, or relief – you feel something. We read poems, posts, blogs and books that tell us “everything happens for a reason,” and “some people aren’t meant to stay in our lives forever.” We’re inspired and motivated to pick up the pieces, move on, focus on new things like loving ourselves, being positive and staying busy, all things that are true and should be practiced day in and day out. What we don’t read about, though, is the realizations we have.
When people leave, we realize they’re gone. We realize that things happen for a reason and that some people aren’t meant to stay in our lives forever…eventually. What about the realizations that occur over time, after the shock has worn off? The realization that I can’t call my best friend for advice, because she left too, for a guy who leaves her all the time. What about the realization that you were wrong, about the fact they’d be around forever? Or the realization that it’s a long road ahead of healing, and growing, and then you realize, wow, it’s going to be this way for a while.
When people leave, those who were left begin to change. We change and we realize along the way how much change lies ahead. We see it coming as we heal and we feel it all over our bodies and throughout our veins as we literally transform from the person we were when we loved someone, to the person we become post-war. When people leave, they don’t just leave a person, they leave questions that are unanswered, they leave daydreams that linger, and memories that hurt to revisit. They leave replays of conversations had, and wonder of the conversations that hadn’t happened yet. They leave all this and much more – but what they fail to see most importantly: is that they leave a tangled heap of strings for the next person to unravel. They leave their mess for someone else.
When people leave, they don’t just leave ‘someone,’ they leave something, for that someone to deal with on their own.