Letting Go By 

A few years back, I came across a small lake – on an expedition planned with my closest friends. After a gruelling few months, dealing with the loss of a loved one, I had finally decided to come out of the little shell I created, and step out into nature. 

With my closest friends screaming and playing around in the background, joking as if they had never known sorrow – I sat by the side of the semi-clear water, flowing with no care in the world. 

As I was looking into my reflection set forth in the stream in front of me, a number of thoughts ran to my mind. How did I get here? Ambitious? Check. Headstrong? Check. Confident? Check. Self-sufficient? Check. And yet… I let another person determine how my mind would work the past few months? A few arguments, disagreements, and hurtful words would lead me here – questioning my here?  self-worth. Was I good enough? Was it just me? Am I the only problem here?

My mind whirled with the possibility that I let another person dictate how my emotions would be for the past few moments. Did I really let another person have the kind of power over me, that would make me question how far I have truly come? The emotional growth I obtained as an adult, after the harrowing experience of being a child – would it all unwind because another person came into my life, “took my world by storm” – and then just left? Well, at least I know this now . But why am I still hung up on the doubt? I realized that this wasn’t good for my mental

health; that it would do me better to just move on. But… why couldn’t I? 

Probably because I was scared that if I let go so fast, I would have to move on to newer things. Ultimately, change is something we all fear . don’t we? Uncertainty is certainly something we avoid, don’t we? 

Or, possibly, was it because my  self-esteem was something I needed to work on? Maybe I hadn’t focused on myself as much as I would have liked to? Maybe I needed to work on loving myself the way I have always strived to, maybe then I would not need another person to depend on the way I did. 

Or possibly, it was just something I couldn’t point out. Because ultimately, the loss of love is hard – and I have a right to feel the way I do. Humans are social creatures, after all, we all need support and nurturing to flourish. It wasn’t wrong of me to depend on another person for just that. 

But I needed to work on myself, didn’t I? I can’t just continue feeling the way I do. Isolating myself from the people who have made the effort to stay on in my life just to mourn the ones I lost… I needed to move past this, for my own sake. As I lay, in the midst of the subtle swish of the water beside me, the hum of the birds above me and the light spraying across the grass beneath my feet- I finally found the courage to let go. 

Now here came the hard part… a decision set in stone, a step into the sand – but what next? 

First, I needed to  accept the reality of the situation. I had lost someone important to me, and blaming them will not do me any favours. They were an important part of my life for a good fraction of the time, and I needed to accept the fact that they would hold a piece of my consciousness for a long time to come. 

Next, I needed to acknowledge the bitterness in me, the anger that had built up and was showing signs of spilling over. Maybe apologise to mom for yelling at her, and projecting the sadness onto my best friend by insulting her dressing sense? Maybe I needed to move past the blame game and concentrate on the fact that maybe that relationship had run its due course. 

But then I thought to myself . Maybe they still love me? Was there some hope? Snapping back into reality, I realised that rationalising the situation, creating false hope, hoping against all odds would surely help me cope now, but what about the future? Well, maybe they still love me or hold feelings for me – but those aren’t the only reasons you stay together, is it? 

And that’s when it happened – the overwhelming need to just disappear – to be able to go back to the good old days, the creeping sadness. The moment I realised that I couldn’t ever get what I had again and that things would forever change – was the moment my tears would flow freely, swinging me through an emotional rollercoaster of sadness and melancholy. 

grief,

Learning to cope with all the emotions, with all the changes was difficult – but time truly does heal all. A few years down the line, I am not where I want to be exactly, but I have healed; I am able to love myself freely and allow myself to fall in love freely. I have taken huge steps and for that, I am proud. I have finally learnt to let go.

But did it happen over the course of just 30 minutes spent by the lakeside? Absolutely not – I needed to give my emotions justice. I took my time, I took it easy – some days after that were still hard when I didn’t think I could move on. But I endured and stuck through – I took all the support I could from my family and friends, allowed myself to feel negatively, and wasn’t too harsh when I cried out loud.  I think we all have our own way of grieving loss, some cry and some laugh to compensate. And I believe that is okay eventually, it’s the realisation that you live for yourself, and no one else can do that for you. It’s the fact that you do have the power to endure change and the willpower to learn to love yourself.  

It’s funny, isn’t it? The kind of poetic thoughts that run through your mind in the company of nature – something that even human contact cannot incite. And yet, the poetry I thought of was not about the lake, or the beautiful green trees growing around me. It was solely about the love I had seemingly lost. And yet, it’s the nature that started me on this journey of letting go. To the day, I believe the slow stream of the water and the calmness with which it executed its waves helped me reach a conclusion – that letting go, was what I really needed to do.