I’ve “lost” people my entire life. Whether we grew apart or fell apart, I don’t have many constants.
Constants: someone who’s always been there, someone who will always be there. Our forever.
I want to talk a little bit about heartbreak, as I am navigating through one right now. I lost one of my constants a few weeks ago and it’s been an emotional journey.
How do you plan a life around someone and then lose them? What do you do after that?
Well, I cried. And then I thought about how loosely we throw around the word “forever,” as if we even know what tomorrow brings.
I know I sound like a teenage girl screaming, “Fuck love!” But stay with me. The problem I have with the word “forever” is that it’s unreliable. You cannot guarantee forever with someone. You can want it, they can want it, but nothing in life is ever set in stone.
There’s a lyric from Justin Biebers’ song Anyone that reads, “You say that I won’t lose you but you can’t predict the future ’cause certain things are out of our control.” This lyric hits harder now that I put my future in the hands of someone who I don’t even talk to anymore.
As a young adult, it’s easy to feel like the world is ending when faced with situations like this.
Grieving someone who’s still alive hurts- and I know for me I lost a romantic partner, but this applies to every relationship.
People are unpredictable. You never know who could be here today and then gone tomorrow. Having that constant fear of losing someone you love is draining. It holds us back from trusting, from loving, from experiencing.
I want to re-frame the hurt I feel, and the hurt I will feel as I grow because hurt is inevitable. And I don’t want to live life scared of loss.
I want to meet people without the lingering thought that they could leave, and it could hurt.
We cannot focus our mindsets on “I lost them and it sucks.” As hard as it may be, you have to peel back that onion and see what that loss really means. It means new experiences, new lessons, more growth.
People leave your life, but they leave you with something.
I am very picky about who I engage with. I feel energies so strongly to the point where I have two, maybe three real friends. Love, comfort, good energy, and a positive mindset are all qualities I look for in my romantic as well as my platonic relationships. However, I never considered value.
Why do people who love us, hurt us? That’s the million-dollar question.
Well.. do they value us? Do they care if they lose us?
While hurting and being hurt isn’t always intentional, intent doesn’t negate impact. This isn’t to say that people who value you can’t hurt you because they can.. anyone can hurt you. But those who value you don’t put you in positions to be hurt.
When you value something, you want to keep it for as long as possible. You do what it takes to hold onto it, to cultivate it. Loving something or someone is easy, but to value holds greater power.
Ask yourself,
Do the people around you value you?
Because I’m sure they love you, why wouldn’t they?
You want to cultivate relationships that have value- not ones that can be easily discarded.
To throw salt in my own wounds, I asked myself,
“Did any of my relationships value me?”
I threw myself into so many people, loved so hard, valued so hard, and I was constantly put in positions to be hurt. I thought love was the strongest thing in a relationship, but I know now that it is value. I know I have been loved, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have also been discarded.
There’s a heavy weight on my heart these days, but in a weird way, I feel light.
What do I mean?
Because although this was a heartbreaking thing to come to terms with, I needed to experience this. And I want to emphasize the importance of experience.
Our experiences make us who we are, as painful as they may be. I can say I’ve walked away from all my relationships having learned something. And I am grateful to have experienced that.
While my heart is heavy, there is no hate. There is always love. I believe people come into your life for a reason, and whatever that reason may be, it makes us stronger.
The art of letting go can be graceful if you let it be.
You are worth more than you think. And you deserve to be valued.
Love always, Amari.
