What does it mean to truly let someone go?

It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right.

Sitting in the pit of my stomach,

I don’t want to rid myself of you.

Do I have a choice to never remember someone I care deeply for?

How could you let someone go if you forever remember them?

When we let go of someone we love,

All those experiences, all those words of wisdom,

all that prior presence,

manifests itself as part of the things that consciously and unconsciously change you.

People who mean something to us will always mean something to us.

Them just meaning this much means something.

Your interpretation of the thing makes meaning. The meaning associated with the thing itself evolves as you experience new experiences. Where the previous interpretation presents itself in a new light and therefore this new interpretation contributes to the meaning of the original thing.

The same thing infinitely evolving within your finite existence adding meaning to this life you’re presently living.

To let go of someone you love,

You must consciously acknowledge you cannot reach them.

They cannot be turned toward, leaned on,

seen.

You will never know how you’ve impacted them or how new experiences have contributed to any future interpretation of their everyday life.

You will no longer bear witness to them.

To let go of them you can consciously choose to take them with you.

Letting go when you’d rather choose not to.

Teachers of humility, courage, and free choice.

Ethical mentors that perpetually reverberate the things we’ve learned in life,

Our relational sound boards.

Our space for private inquiry and internal exploration.

Our therapists.

How has your experience with this person contributed to your understanding of who you’ve come to be thus far?

Why do we let go of people?

People who we love dies.

People who would rather not communicate.

They couldn’t confront themselves or you.

They couldn’t grow with you.

When someone who saw you no longer sees you.

What it felt like to be seen when they saw you comes with you.

What if you notice no one sees you like them?

What does that end up meaning to you?

Revelatory moments of ourselves.

Never-ending.

You know what it feels like to be truly seen.

People manifest as change in us across a lifespan.

They fall to the tapestry of lived experience reappearing from the engagement with something that elicited original thoughts of them.

Coffee shop in a museum of art.

Dirty chai.

Leaning backwards. I look up.

Accordions dangled from the ceiling above me, how couldn’t I think of you.

Sipping and swirling with notes of insight.

With the deepest sense of gratitude for free choice.

What a bright light. . .

#insight

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist

#futureself

#time

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