Going, Going, Gone.
Nothing is permanent.
Simple, yet so incredibly difficult to live.
Everything … will … end.
Lives, love, and, yes, friendships.
I’ve noticed that the tighter a person clings to the idea of permanence, the harder time they have of this life as it unfolds. I suppose on the surface, the denial makes sense. I mean, goodness, it’s sort of depressing.
Sort of depressing. Not totally, though.
Accepting impermanence as a reality frees us to love that which is in our lives in this moment with a wholeness and abandon that might not be possible if we were assured of an eternal experience of the world as we know it. What I mean is, when you know that nothing lasts forever, you treasure what you have. An ability to accept impermanence as truth may very well be the most life changing thing a person experiences.
Despite the simplicity of it, accepting impermanence is difficult because it involves letting go.
I hate letting go.
Of events, of books and old letters, of e-mail, and, oh, God, of people. I want to wrap every person I love up in a preservative infused cellophane, zap them with a shrink ray and carry them around in my pocket until someone makes a secret potion that will make us all live forever.
I don’t want anyone to leave or, worse, change.
Be the person I loved when I first met you… don’t change… don’t make me work to accept this terrible reality that nobody stays the same… I don’t wanna grow up because maybe if I did…
As someone who has lived within 45 minutes of her hometown her whole life, I have said goodbye to so many people. I don’t like letting go, but I guess I’m fairly good at it.
When a person drifts from your life, whether through natural or man made cause, the tendency is to cling to the hope that what has been lost can with work be rebuilt.
They will come back. The right apology or a long heartfelt talk will fix everything.
It’s a natural hope, and, I guess, in some cases, it’s a rare reality.
Many times, though, it is not.
There are things that have been said or done that can not be undone. And while that can often be overlooked, what cannot be overlooked is that those actions, words, events change the parties involved irrevocably. We become different people… people who can’t be friends again. Because who we were before is so very different from who we are now.
This is not really anyone’s fault.
Sometimes things that once fit so perfectly no longer belong together. Like Forrest Gump, I believe that this is a little mixture of choice and destiny.
Change is inevitable. There are times when dissolution is inevitable, as well. This, my friend, is life.
In the end, what has faded no longer centers upon the issue of forgiveness. It becomes an issue of acceptance.
Can you accept that this is the way it will be?
I think you can.
Can you accept that even though this is the way it is, you will still be happy?
I hope you can. As your friend, I want you to.
Loving someone doesn’t always mean you fight for them. Sometimes loving someone just means letting them go.
Most important, loving yourself means letting them go, too.
Love yourself.
Please.
****
I posted on Hey! That’s My Hummus about henna today. Which also happens to be impermanent. See what I did there?
20 Responses to Going, Going, Gone.
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This is one concept I have no trouble with – I think it’s because I really do try to keep in mind that at any time, things can happen and your whole world can change. I appreciate who’s in my life right now, and don’t waste time on worrying about the people who aren’t (for whatever reason). Luckily, though – or maybe because of this – I find that I have friends from 1st grade, to this day.
Also, I have no trouble at all getting rid of people who are nothing but a PITA.
One of the things I love about Buddhist philosophy is that it is built around the idea of impermanence. Absolutely everything is changing moment by moment, even if it’s imperceptible to us. By accepting that nothing ever truly stays the same, it’s easier to let go of people as we remember them and accept them for how they are now. It’s an ideal that I dearly wish more people would adopt, because so many of the troubles we face today stem from things that happened long ago… in a time where the world was a very different place as it is now.
I really have such a hard time with that concept. Everything we do in life builds on what we did in the past and the thought of it all being for naught because things aren’t permanent is hard to accept.
Why grow? Why develop? Why not be shallow and go after simple pleasures with reckless abandon? It’s not like there’s any longevity to worry about?
I know that’s irrational right there, but that’s how I think of it sometimes. Things that last for a long time mean something. That semi-permanence has to mean something, right?
@Avitable, I don’t think it’s for naught. Our experiences us shape us, make us who we are. Every single thing that happens, good or bad, can be used as a learning experience, an opportunity to grow and blossom. And you are permanent. Well, sort of.
Very true. It’s easier to accept when the changes are positive, not so easy when it’s something you don’t like. I still find myself fighting this sometimes even though I know I can’t.
I do pretty well with a mutual parting of ways.
It’s a break or a loss that is against my will that hangs me up. I guess that’s a control thing.
I expect people to come and go out of my life, I just want to have some say in it.
I can do it, but after the fact I cannot help feeling a sadness…a sense of remorse.
Change is a part of life. Maybe my ease in accepting this comes from moving to a different city every four months for five years (after 19 years without moving EVER); I don’t know. But I know that when things change, when I have to move on, while I may miss some people or things, it’s not difficult, just sad.
Maybe it’s because I am already well versed in mortality but… is it wrong that all I could think of was, “Oh geez, what did I do now?“
“Accepting impermanence as a reality frees us to love that which is in our lives in this moment with a wholeness and abandon that might not be possible if we were assured of an eternal experience of the world as we know it.”
Absolutely. This is true of people, places, jobs, life situations – even ones we may be tempted to wish away.
I do think that some very few, very precious things last a lifetime, at least. Family relationships, for example, are so valuable to me, in part, because they are one of the few constants of my life.
One of my favorite mantras is: Things will change; they always do. It’s something I’ve come to count on.
It’s hard when that change is the end of a relationship. I’ve had to adjust to the shift of more than one important person from front-and-center to the periphery of my life, and I though I sometimes wish it could be different, I realize that we are different so the relationship could never be the same.
Thank you for this today, it fit perfectly into what is swirling around in my head. Thank you.
Because who we were before is so very different from who we are now.
It is very hard to accept some of these changes. I wrestle with it, but there is so much truth.
But sometimes the separation is good because of the growth it brings.
Are you breaking up with me?
Fine, but I get to keep the Buffy DVD collection. You can keep Angel. Pfft.
I was an Air Force brat and an Air Force wife for 30 years. Every 4 years I found myself pulling away from friends, even picking fights, and now know it was a form of self protection from being hurt at the loss of my friends. Both as a child and as an adult. Yet, often we’d meet again at a new base, and take up our friendship all over again, only to pull away again. Now, these old friends are LASTING friends, and though we may not see one another for decades, can pick up where we left off as though it was yesterday.
Oh, I hate change and I can’t accept when things change when I don’t want them to. In all situations. WHY do certain things have to change? I hate when things are good, and then change. I hate when best friends move away. I hate that my children are growing (although I love it, too.) because it’s so bittersweet. I don’t want to give up people I love or like.
i am probably worse than you in this regard… i cannot STAND letting go, or goodbyes…
im really kinda kooky about it. Even to the point where, if im out at happy hour with friends, i have been known to just leave without saying goodbye to people…
[...] brings me to this blog post and this quote: They will come back. The right apology or a long heartfelt talk will fix [...]
I’m a people-keeper. I have friends who’ve known me for 20 years and some. My ex-girlfriend was present at the birth of my first child! I mistakenly thought that I was some sort of supreme being in the friendship arena. Then, one of my closest friends from high school cut me out of her life. I was devastated. I wanted to process it all, to be accountable for anything I’d done. I thought it could be fixed but it couldn’t. It’s a painful lesson but I think I’m better for having learned it. Maybe in embracing impermanence we learn to appreciate and honor what we have right now. Or maybe it just sucks.
I love this.
A high school friend wrote something to the effect of everyone who crosses his path is a brush stroke on the canvas of his life. That has always stuck with me, and for whatever reason I’ve always thought of people in my life as not permanent (except for close family). Some people, I wish I could keep, some, I wish I could get rid of!