I always thought that letting go was just forgetting or maybe pretending you don't care but the truth was I do remember everything and I do care then how on earth can I let go?
Have you ever held on so tightly that your hands began to ache? Not just your hands, but your chest, your breath, your entire being? That was me once—clutching to people, dreams, and moments that were already slipping away, believing that if I just tried harder, loved deeper, held tighter, I could keep them.
But the truth? The tighter I held, the more I lost myself.
The day I learned to let go wasn’t neat or graceful. It didn’t come wrapped in wisdom or tied with a ribbon of clarity. It came with tears, silence, and a shattering inside me that I thought I’d never recover from. But sometimes, the breaking is the beginning.
The Childhood Lesson We Never Outgrow
Remember the first time you had to lose something you loved? Perhaps it was a toy that you have taken everywhere till it broke down. Perhaps it is the friend who went away without prior notice. Perhaps it was the day your mom said to you to quit crying because your heart was being ripped apart.
I recall my own: I had a dog when I was seven. He was my cuddle doll, my nest. One day I woke up in the morning and he was gone. Sometimes you just have to be strong, my father said. But I wasn’t strong. I wept into my pillow, silently, lest anyone should hear how hurt it was. It was the first occasion I heard that letting go is a betrayal--the letting go of the part of a person who loved.
We learn to grow, yet that lesson does not change. Releasing, however, is no less a failure than? And like you confess that you were not good enough to keep something.
The Relationship I Held Too Long
Years later, I found myself in a relationship that I thought was everything. You know the kind—where you plan futures, imagine names for children, believe love can fix everything. I gave and gave, even when my body whispered, “This is not safe.”
There were fights, silences, little cruelties that stacked like bricks between us. But I kept holding on because I thought leaving meant losing. I thought if I let go, I’d be empty.
But the emptiness had already arrived. It was there in the way I laughed less, in the way I apologized for existing, in the way I looked in the mirror and saw someone smaller than she used to be.
Flashback: When They Told You to Be Strong
Remember those moments when people told you not to cry? “Be strong.” “Move on.” “It’s not a big deal.” They meant well, but what they taught us was that grief must be hidden. That letting go should be silent, stoic, clean.
But grief is not clean. It’s messy. It leaks into your mornings, into the songs you can’t listen to anymore, into the empty chair at the dinner table. It shows up in places you never expected.
And yet, it also teaches you—piece by piece—that your heart can break and still keep beating. That your hands can release and still hold again.
When I walked away that day my legs trembled so I thought they were going to give way. It was not that I was not holding on to him I was just letting go of the image of myself, who thought that she had to plead with love.
Dark Affirmations We Do Not Say Out Loud.
You don’t need to keep bleeding to prove that you are alive. You do not need to hold onto what is hurting you because since you once prayed about it. There is nothing you need to repair within you that was never broken.
It is sometimes only necessary to lose that grip in order to remember that you were not the problem.
The Day Everything Fell Apart.
One day--it is all so fresh in my mind--all my ideas of what I thought was being built fell. A job I loved ended abruptly. One of the relationships that I had struggled to maintain went to my head. Friendships grew distant. It was as though the universe was peeling me off, in peels.
I recall how I was sitting on the floor and all around me there were boxes and my sight was filled with tears. I said to myself quietly: I do not know who I am without all this.
And that occurred to me--perhaps that was the idea. Perhaps I had been clumping so much to things that could never last, thinking that they were identity, thinking they were purpose.
It was on that day when I started to learn: letting go is not about losing. It’s about returning.
The thing is that I did not know initially that letting go does not mean forgetting. It does not imply that the memories fail to fade, or that the love was in vain. It means the weight shifts. The sharp edges soften. The pain is something you have a different burden.
The remembrance without desiring is calm. It helps to be able to know that you can endure absence.
I still think of my dog. I continue to think of the love that I lost. I remember the job lost. But they don’t undo me anymore. They exist as chapters, not chains.
Releasing is not about acting like you do not care. It is about acknowledging the fact that you loved something very much- and you decided to come free.
Since the fact is: not everything is supposed to remain. Some people are lessons. There are stepping-stone dreams. There are those moments which are merely moments.
And clinging to the past will only leave you with your hands clenched around the past so that you can not open them wide enough to take what is coming.
A Note of Hope
The day I was taught to release, I felt that something so mighty is that nothing was lost that deprived me of who I am. I am still here. I am still whole. Even though what I loved could not remain, I remain worthy of love.
Perhaps you’re clinging now--clutches so tight-fisted that your knuckles are sore. Perhaps you fear that on release you will disintegrate. This is what I would like you to know: you may break, yes. But you will also rebuild. And the fragments you reassemble will have a sort of power that can be found only in release.
Letting go is not the end. It is the doorway. The opening. The breath you thought you were not breathing.
And, perhaps, just perhaps it is the start of going back home to yourself.
#selflove #womanhood #breakingstereotypes