Letting Go

day twenty-five.

Today, I was browsing through my Multiply and saw this poem that I posted, from my friend Sam’s LJ:

You Must Accept
by Kate Light

You must accept that’s who he really is.
You must accept that you cannot be his
unless he can be yours. No compromise.
He is a canvas on which paint never dries;
a clay that never sets; he’s steel that bends
in a breeze; he’s a melody that when it ends
no one can whistle; he is not who
you thought. He’s not. He is a shoe
that walks away: “I will not go where you
want to go.” “Why, then, are you a shoe?”
“I’m not. I have the sole of a lover
but don’t know what love is.” “Discover
it, then.” “Will I have to go where you go?”
“Sometimes.” “Be patient with you?” “Yes.” “Then, no.”
You have to hear what he is telling you
and see what he is; how it is killing you.

I remember the first time I read this, it struck me straight to the heart, like this was especially written for me. I’m exaggerating, maybe, a bit. But you know, when you’re at the height of an emotion, everything hits you, hard. Every song, every letter, every movie, every story, every poem. It just speaks to you.

That happened to me a year ago. Or something like that. But when I read this poem now, I still feel the sadness that it’s meant to convey…but it doesn’t hit me as hard anymore. It’s nice to know that you’ve moved on from something, that you’re okay, that you don’t dwell on whatever it is that happened anymore. It’s so liberating to finally let things go.

I remember a question I used to ask back in college: how do you really let go? Is there a process, like in making birth announcements? What steps do I take? What to do, who to talk to, can I cry? What if I don’t want to let it go? What if I can’t let it go? Is this God’s will? Why is God making me do this? Doesn’t He know this is hurting?

I once compared letting something go to a garden. There are flowers and there are weeds. God wants me to pull out the weeds, but I don’t because I think it’s already pretty enough. But God wants something better for me, so He urges me to pull out the weeds even if I don’t want to. If I don’t pull out the weeds, the real flowers choke, and die, and I’d be left with weeds. They may be pretty, but in the end, they really don’t do anything.

It’s never easy. Believe me, I know. It’s never easy when the thing you’re being asked to let go of is something (or someone) you really like (or love). It’s also silly to know that sometimes there are things that you find hard to let go of is something that you don’t really like or love as much as you thought — it’s just something or someone you’ve gotten used to. Or it’s something or someone that you think there might be something, but not sure just yet.

Did that make sense?

Letting go is hard. Don’t believe it when other people tell you it’s not. It requires an everyday effort. It doesn’t happen overnight.

But if it’s any comfort, God never asks us to let go of something if it wasn’t in our best interest. He never asks us to let go of something if He doesn’t have something better for us. He is a loving Father, and He wouldn’t ask us to say goodbye to something just out of spite. And if your heart breaks in the process…well, sometimes God has to break our hearts little by little so when He heals it, it’s big enough to handle what He wants to give us. :)

Have a great weekend, everyone. Holy Week is just around the corner — it’s time to reflect on His love once again. :)