All The Things I Learned About Myself After You Left

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The coming and going of people in our lives is a beautiful phenomenon-albeit painful at times. Beauty lies in the way we learn to come home to ourselves and stay grounded in our self worth when someone leaves. The way someone leaves reveals so much about the value they invested in us as a person.

And it’s just natural to outgrow people.
My mother once told me that life is all about moving on. People leave because we’ve finally understood something life has been trying to teach us. It’ll hurt sometimes, yes, but that’s the way life unfolds. We’re constantly moving from one place to another, from one state to the next. From all this moving, it’s possible to believe in the notion of love- that one person would stay indefinitely and accept you as you are.

It was then that I realized that he left. Without any explanation, I just knew that things weren’t the same- the way he talked, the way his eyes would meet mine, the way his touches drew away. More and more unspoken words fill the spaces between us, all the what-if’s, maybe’s, and should’ve been’s. I never knew what we were and I don’t think I was ready to know anyway, but I wanted it nonetheless.

But I don’t want him back (or so I try to think). He left ever so subtly so as I wouldn’t notice despite making me believe in the hopes of an “us.”  The way someone leaves reveals so much about the value they invested in us as a person. And the way he left- quiet, no room for closure, is closure in itself. I used to believe that when the old goes, we rely on the new to fill the gaps left behind. But I realized we don’t have to spend all that idle time just waiting for something or someone new. We have to find it within ourselves to pick the pieces back up and make ourselves whole again. With all the people entering and inevitably leaving our lives, what we can truly call ours is our own person.

Our life is a constant journey of learning and we learn from the world beyond us- people, experiences. Just like going a grade level higher or graduating, we move on from the people and things we’ve learned all that we needed to. People leave and we learn to cut off ties. It is the strength of our self worth that stops us from downplaying our existence to being mere stop overs to a greater destination.

We are the destination. We need to come home to ourselves
rather than seeking for temporary abodes in other people that wouldn’t know who we really are. Because once we are home, we learn to welcome the right people in and gracefully lead the wrong ones out through our doors.