i spent a very, very long time thinking & focusing on people who are no longer in my life & haven’t been for years. I have finally learnt to appreciate the time that i did have them & leave it at that.
My dad leaving us when i was 12 really messed me up emotionally & made it really hard for me to let go of people & moments & feelings. But, at the start of 2019 his brother died. & it changed him. & he apologised. For things i didn’t think he’d ever admit to himself or say out loud, let alone sit across from me at the table, look me in the eyes & say ‘sorry’ for. & i know he truly meant every word, because those words have never been spoken by him before. It was a real moment. & it changed him, & it changed me. for the better. our relationship has become the best it’s ever ever been. More importatly, i was able to get the closure i so badly longed for. I was able to give him the forgiveness i so badly wanted to give for years & years, had he only apologised.
My dad said to me when we were having that conversation ‘you cannot control the things that happen to you Bev, but you can control how you react to them’. Coming from him, it really resonated & stayed with me. For so long, i reacted badly to people & to situations. especially as a teenager. i showed the worst of me, i fell into misery.
I hated anyone leaving me & refused to stop thinking about anybody who did. I woud literally lay awake at night thinking about & eventually dreaming about having one last conversation with an ex boyfriend or a friend i’d lost. It would consume me. I would lay awake for hours re-playing moments with my ex-boyfriend over & over & over again, wishing i could run back & relive them again. Hoping one day we would be together again & i could love him right & he could love me the same. I would miss out on moments in the present because i’d be so wrapped up in the nostalgia of the past, begging to be loved by someone i didnt even have a single ounce of contact with anymore, wondering if they were up at night thinking of me too.
Not going to lie, Ariana Grande’s song Thank U Next has also had a hugeeeee part in me learning to move on. To be thankful, but to move forward. to learn a lesson, take the lesson with you, but leave the person in your memory. I wish i had that song when me & liam broke up, when matt blocked me. wow, it would’ve been a massive help. Although, i’m not mad i felt those things, i needed to at the time.
Since that conversation with my dad, something inside of me definitely changed & I’ve fully learnt to let go. To accept that not everyone is supposed to be in your life, for all of your life. You meet people, they change you, they teach you something, they are there for you, & then some times they are gone. I am grateful to have had that time with them at all, to have known them as that version of themselves & to have shared a part of me with them. Lucky to have loved & been loved by them at all. I have learnt to forgive them for leaving & to forgive myself for letting them go. And.. in the future, if anybody leaves my life? i cannot control that, but i can control how i react to it. I can be thankful, not miserable. Thank U, Next.
