I was paying for my cans of cola in Tesco's earlier and kept thinking about how TOGETHER my life is when I noticed an elderly man at the check out next to me. He had kind brown eyes and that kind of grumbly low voice some old men get, a combination of a life of cigarettes and ageing. He was husky, but I wanted to hug him.
I listened to him speak with the girl who was serving him. She smiled, clearly he was a regular and they’d interacted before. He was only buying two chocolate bars.
“For your wife, right?” She asked, but it seemed she knew the answer.
He smiled, “You know it, she loves these things.
I think it’s so sweet you come and get these for her.”
His entire face erupted into the kind of grin that made me want to hug him.
And he said, so simply, “She does quite a lot for me. I'm more than happy to do this for her.”
And there, in tesco's, actually looking like a hot-mess special on why 20-somethings today suck and don’t know how to do anything, I teared up. Because it was so beautiful. He was just buying his wife chocolate. Because he loved her. And she loved him. And I realised I had approached this whole "letting go" thing in the wrong direction (for me anyway) ...
Love becomes an obsession when we lose it. I wonder if it’s a bit like water: something we take for granted when we feel as if we’ll always have it. We replenish our bodies with it. We swim in it. We can even drown, and if nobody is paying attention, we can slip to the bottom of the ocean. But when it’s gone? It becomes everything. When drought hits, you remember how good it once tasted.
It becomes the ghost hanging out in your old messages. It becomes the dimming memories you desperately cling to, hoping they will somehow ease the blow of reality. It becomes the thing that makes you tear up in tesco's when you see it and realise you don’t have it.
For most of us, an individual sticks out when we hear certain words. Perhaps it’s the person you fear you won’t ever get over. Maybe it’s even someone you never got: a what-if that burns the back of your throat. There’s such a pressure to move forward and just get over it and let it go. (And one I have been writing about and pressuring myself to do)
I googled ( haha) some articles that will give you tips and ideas on how to "let go"...
Move forward!
Go for a walk!
Date someone new!
Throw away items that remind you of them!
Take a quiz!
Analyse your personality with a free online test!
DO ALL THESE THINGS!
But words have a way of losing meaning. Advice, even when requested, becomes a soundtrack that fades a bit. We ask for things knowing full well we won’t listen. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s okay to not get over someone. Maybe it’s okay that they have left a mark on your heart. You think this is fault. You think this is you being foolish and stuck on a person who is no longer there. You become convinced you are the one in the wrong.
But what if that’s not true? What if we carry pieces of everyone in all that we do and that’s not something to be ashamed of? You are atoms and molecules all vibrating around, but you’re more than that. You are experiences and heartache. You are loving and losing it. And finding it again. You are people you no longer speak to. You are people you will have forever. Even the most self-proclaimed crusty heart has something lingering inside that brought them to that conclusion. We are made up of moments that have brought us here. That’s not bad. That’s the inner-connectedness of the human experience.
So hey, if you’re afraid you won’t get over that one person, don’t worry about it too much. You are still living and breathing. It may have felt like your world crumbled apart when things broke, but the world around you didn't stop. And you didn't either. So keep being and pushing and living. Love again. Trust someone with your bleeding and scared heart, and if they drop it? You will be okay. Maybe you will be the dropper.
The point is, don’t stress if you are taking too long to move forward. Because sometimes, we don’t. That will not keep you from another grand love or a lifetime of satisfaction. It just means someone was important enough to make a permanent impression. You don’t have to get rid of them to make room. You have unlimited space for so many people. So cut yourself some slack. It’s okay to miss someone important. And what I have also come to realise is that there are always people loving people & loving you, even if they are not the person you want. There's still a whole lot of love out there.
