{"id":551010,"date":"2015-12-25T10:01:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-25T15:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/?p=551010"},"modified":"2021-08-29T00:14:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-29T04:14:00","slug":"how-to-let-them-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/chelsea-fagan\/2015\/12\/how-to-let-them-go\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Let Them Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, accept that you haven\u2019t let them go yet. Don\u2019t allow yourself to believe your speeches to your friends, or your empty promises to yourself about how they don\u2019t matter anymore. Accept that you still think of them, accept that wine makes your heart tight with thoughts of them, accept that there\u2019s a letter you\u2019ve started to them at least a dozen times, even if only in your mind.<\/p>\n

Accept that they\u2019re still here.<\/p>\n

You know the one \u2013 the one who popped into your head the second you read this, the one who\u2019s been occupying that same little place in the back of your mind for as long as you can remember. It\u2019s the person you think of every so often like a punch to the gut, the one you allow yourself to remember in little painful bursts which make you wince. Maybe they\u2019re still in your life, still on your phone, still the profile you type in late at night after a few glasses of wine and look at just a little too long. Maybe their number hasn\u2019t been in your phone for months, but it doesn\u2019t have to be, because you still remember it by heart. Maybe they aren\u2019t there at all, no one you can touch or laugh with or even yell at with all the things you wish you\u2019d said. Maybe they\u2019re totally gone, but you still can\u2019t let them go.<\/p>\n

Remember that it\u2019s not up to you, though. Remember that you can only control your half of the equation, and that it\u2019s not your job to decide when someone else will come and go from your life. You cannot force anyone to stay, or to stay in love, or even to stay your friend. Remember that it will always be worth waiting for the person who wants to be there, that the feeling of being wanted in return will be a thousand times better than holding someone hostage. If you\u2019re still reaching out, still grabbing at their hand, still clinging to the last little bits of what you had \u2013 know that it\u2019s only delaying your pain, and robbing you both of your dignity. Never settle for pity.<\/p>\n

So take the first step, and the second. Do the things that feel like ripping a band-aid off so that you can start making the decisions, instead of waiting to see what they choose to do. Send that final email that you\u2019ve been delaying, because you don\u2019t want to admit that it\u2019s really, really over. Tell them what you need to say, leave nothing unturned, say the things you can\u2019t come back from. Take away their number, their name on your feed, their old emails you\u2019ve been saving and reading whenever you feel really, really low. Purge yourself of them and choose to do it actively, let yourself have the final say for once by having the first one.<\/p>\n

Ask your friends, as nicely as you can, to help you forget them. Tell them that you don\u2019t want to talk about this person anymore, and to cut you off if you do. Remember that what you are in denial about is almost certainly obvious to everyone else, so let them be the mirror you don\u2019t want to look in. When you\u2019re getting desperate, when you\u2019re reaching for your phone, when you\u2019re about to have the same conversation for the hundredth time about what your last conversation meant, make sure there is someone to stop you. Let everyone know you want to be stopped, and you want to be clean.<\/p>\n

Start this year with building, with all the things you will focus on and put your energy into, so that there will be no space left for the person you need to let go. Remember that you can only be aching if you have time for it, and that there are a thousand things you could be doing with your evenings that aren\u2019t \u201cdebating sending yet another text message you\u2019ll regret.\u201d Make this the year of letting go by making it the year you embrace things, the year you take up space with things that deserve it, and the year you remember how much time you wasted in the last one.<\/p>\n

Let them go by remembering that there will be another one. Another love, another project, another passion, another night on a rooftop drinking wine and making each other laugh. There will be another thing that consumes you \u2013 and it might not even be a person. If it\u2019s not, maybe even better. Remember that this will not stay forever as the big thing that consumes you, and that this can be the year of finding something much, much better, if you make room for it.<\/p>\n

And remember that once someone is gone, they are an anchor, no matter how much you want to see them otherwise. Don\u2019t spend another year with their weight tied to your ankle, because there are way too many wonderful things to see above the water. \"Thought<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let them go by remembering that there will be another one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36248491,"featured_media":706241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"thoughtcatalog_call_to_action":"","tc_post_redirect":"","thoughtcatalog_is_sponsored_content":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[433425955],"tags":[],"anchortext":[],"posttemplate":[603196126],"adcampaign":[],"coauthors":[178686843],"class_list":["post-551010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","featured_content-ftrd"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/26432334112_151f67bcda_h.jpg","author_meta":null,"photo_credit":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36248491"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907344,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551010\/revisions\/907344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551010"},{"taxonomy":"anchortext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anchortext?post=551010"},{"taxonomy":"posttemplate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posttemplate?post=551010"},{"taxonomy":"adcampaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adcampaign?post=551010"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=551010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}