Read This If Old Memories Are Haunting You

It’s hard to accept when something is over, whether that be something as simple as a good book, a decent cup of coffee, or a connection with someone you once thought the world of.

When something is over, when something is done, you find yourself wondering what it was you could have done differently. But when Autumn ends, she doesn’t ask why, she just goes on. She erupts in color and accepts that her time has come—a constant cycle of new beginnings with an accepting end.

Think of it like your favorite old record. Sometimes you play it to feel how you did the first time you heard it. And then sometimes, just sometimes, it gets stuck. The same lyrics repeating over and over, and all of a sudden, they’re etched inside your mind.

Memories work like that too.

I know it can sometimes be comforting to replay them. Memories bring you a certain type of bittersweet nostalgia you can’t always explain. However, our wounds can never heal if we continue to stay in the same place where we were injured. It’s important to know that although it may be nice to relive something again inside of our heads, we can never relive them again outside of it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold on to them, but treat them like an old photograph, something that is kept in a safe place that you can look back on from time to time and smile while accepting how much has changed.

Change isn’t just about letting go of old things, it’s about being open to new ones, for there is still more to come. So, do not be afraid of what is new. You will grow in the hours, days, weeks that naturally follow this one. And believe me, darling, that as hard as it may seem, it is natural—sometimes relationships and friendships just cease.

When you find yourself drowning in what once was, raise your head above the water and remind yourself of what is going to be. And remember that you go on, with or without them.