As an adult, one realizes that relationships end. Long term or short term, the reality is that all kinds of relationships -- romantic, platonic, and sometimes even familial -- can come to a natural close.
When I was younger, and a relationship ended, I focused on my own frustration. Why wasn't this person who I had thought s/he was? Why did s/he fail me? But as an older, wiser person, I realize: a failed relationship? Is never that one sided. There are two people, bewildered and betrayed, wondering: who is this other person? How did I so misunderstand who they are? How did this person become someone I don't recognize?
It's always easy to blame someone else: she changed. He isn't the same. But doing that is unrealistic, because the truth of the matter is that we all grow and change. So sometimes, people grow apart. Sometimes, people need to reveal themselves in a new way. Sometimes, a partner stops tolerating what used to be tolerable.
The trick? Letting it be okay. Not casting about for who to blame, but accepting that this is how we evolve. Realizing that this is how we learn to love, by making mistakes and changing and growing and facing our own less than spectacular experiences.
I have come to realize that letting go -- and being released -- can be an act of kindness, even when it doesn't feel like one. And that harbouring ongoing resentment over a failed relationship is not only an act of futility, but ultimately, also self negating. It's more important to remember what was lovely than it is to dwell on what wasn't; it's better to live in a memory palace of love than it is to dwell in the bitter barn.
Because, ultimately, how a relationship ends, and what you take from that ending, belongs to you. The lesson is yours. I think I have finally learned how to make it a good one.
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