How to Let Go: Learning to Deal With Loss

Recently, my wife and I passed by the spot of one of our first dates. For the next few minutes, we smiled and reminisced and rehashed a small, happy sliver of our shared story. That date had been absolutely magical. One of those nights you dream about when you’re an awkward teenager, but as a single young adult, you begin to believe it might never happen.

 And then it does. A night that you only get to experience maybe a couple of times in your life, if you’re lucky. And with that realization, to my surprise, I began to experience a faint sort of sadness. I grieved over a tiny loss of myself—that cocky, self-assured 27-year-old who walked into that restaurant having no idea what lay before him. The infinite potential that lay before us. The intensity of emotions that I didn’t know what to do with.

 The two people we were that night were now gone. And they would never come back.

 I would never get to meet my wife for the first time again.

 I would never get to fall wildly in love in a way that both excited and terrified me at the same time.

 There was a sweet, cocky ignorance to my younger self that has been irrevocably lost. And despite being lost for the best reasons, it still made me sad. For a few moments, I silently mourned my past the way one mourns a distant relative’s death. And then I moved on. I’m no stranger to loss. I don’t think any of us are. I’ve watched family members and friends die. I’ve had romantic relationships end in a spectacular explosion, and I’ve had them end in a long, drawn out silence. I’ve lost friendships, jobs, cities, and communities. I’ve lost beliefs—in both myself and others.

 Every loss is a form of death. In every case, there once existed an experience—a thing, an idea, a person—that brought your life meaning. Now it no longer exists. Coping with loss always involves the same dynamics. In every case—whether it’s the loss of a friendship, a career, a limb, whatever—we are forced to reckon with the fact that we will never experience something or someone again. We are forced to feel an internal emptiness and to accept our pain. We are forced to confront that horrible, horrible word: “Never.”

 “Never” hurts because never means that it cannot be changed. And we always like to think that things can be changed. That possibility makes us feel better.

“Just work a little, a bit harder!”
“You just have to want it enough!”

 These phrases give us a boot in the ass. They say if you don’t like it, get out there and change it. But “never”? Never means it’s over. Never means it’s gone. Never means forever. And that’s really hard to bear.

 You can never bring a dead person back to life. You can never hit ‘reset’ on a broken relationship. You can never fix a wasted youth or redo a past mistake or unsay the words that destroyed a friendship. When it’s gone, it’s gone. And it will never be the same, no matter what you do. And this, in a real psychological sense, destroys a small piece of you. A piece that must eventually be rebuilt.

 This is a story inspired me to make an article. It changes my mind in hard times, So Guys Accept the situation and MOVE ON...

 Wishing you a Very Happy New Year 2022 and wish your dream may come true.

Enjoyed this article? Stay informed by joining our newsletter!

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.