Not All That Leaves Will Return; Not All That Comes Will Stay
I have learned that nothing is permanent in this life. We are all brief passengers in a world that sometimes takes away what we love the most. If someone leaves we have to let go, not to cling to that which hurts, and to make authentic love and affection my priority.
We have all learned that life hurts sometimes. It is painful because it forces us to experience changes that we were not expecting, to break ties, to lose people, and to taste the flavor of sadness in all of its nuances. It also forces us to understand that sometimes being strong implies knowing our weaknesses.
The only thing that is really permanent in this life is love, the kind that your loved ones will take with them when they leave you, or the kind that you still have in your heart today for the first person who inhabited it.
Love that is authentic is the kind that really lasts and enriches us. We are talking about that sincere affection between parents and children, between siblings, and the love that we feel for someone that, despite no longer being our partner, we hold in the most precious depths of our minds as a pleasant memory.
Positive emotions are the ones that build us up from within and give us strength, relief, and refuge. To love is to live, to expand ourselves, and to learn. However, the wheel of life never stops turning, and it is possible that those who leave will never come back. And what comes may not stay.
What you loved will stay forever
Throughout our lives, we should always move forward with a light backpack of hard feelings, hatred, and frustration, and try to store positive emotions: pleasant memories, experiences had, enthusiasm, modesty, and love in each of its many forms.
There is someone who brings such a great light into our world that even though they have left us, that spark still remains, lighting up our daily lives.
Maybe we have left a loved one, or maybe too it is that our relationship has ended. Whatever the origin of it may be, at the end of that process of inner healing, it is important for us always to keep positive emotions about us.
Love as the key to inner healing
Let us look at an example: someone shows up suddenly in our life, changes it, makes us feel the authenticity of love, passion, and the most heartfelt complicity. However, that love does not stay. For whatever reason, it ends.
Most likely, after breaking off that connection, what we feel first is going to be anger, then sadness, grieving, and maybe that accumulation of feelings will give rise to frustration.
Every negative emotion is going to bring about profound changes in our character and personal balance. It will make us less confident and more insecure. And it is possible for you to end up thinking that it is better not to love so that you do not have to suffer.
Understand that if you close the door to your heart for something that did not stay, in some way, you are refusing to live. Hard feelings will make us slaves of the past and will stop us from moving forward in the present.
The key to all of this lies in knowing how to stand up to loss, to accept it, and to keep everything that we experienced, everything that we went through. Keep the love and the good memories, keep that good chapter, and allow the wounds to heal as they should so that you can allow yourself to be happy again.
What is lost remains in our heart
We have made it clear that throughout our mourning process, it is necessary to hang onto the good times. To make that love into a warm wind that can cover us in those moments of cold and grieving. Now, it is worth remembering that everything that we lose physically continues living in our heart.
Life teaches us that no matter how tightly we hug a person, it is impossible to keep them by our side forever, sometimes life itself longs for them and steals them from us, without us really understanding why.
It is not easy to accept loss, that the person who once was with us has gone forever, that the person who has returned wants to leave again. Life is also dealing with goodbyes, and not all of them, unfortunately, can be made in a train station with one last hug.
We must accept the impermanence of things and learn to value the moment, the here and now, as much as possible.
Whoever is no longer at your side doubtlessly gave you the great gift of their company, of their affection, of those steps taken together, of all those moments that you shared. All of this is a legacy to keep in your memory and in your heart with a calm smile.
Your heart and your memory have an unexpected capacity for affection and love. It is the treasure of life, the treasure that we must cultivate each day, that will accompany us when the person we love the most is no longer by our side.
Images courtesy of Anna Dittman, Frank Ezh