There is a recurring circumstance that I feel compelled to touch on. I’ve been subjected to it and many of you have as well. I’m speaking about the moment when you become aware that the person that you love is gone. I’m not talking about them passing away, but rather that they have completely changed.

We’ve all fallen in love with someone based on their character and personality. We can list the qualities they possessed which led us to feeling such an emotion towards them. But the bottom line is that people change and it can come out of nowhere. I’ve witnessed first hand that spending time with someone and being in a relationship with them does NOT mean you know the person they really are. It can really take you by surprise. How can someone you thought you knew so well and felt so strongly for suddenly become a complete stranger? It’s very difficult and frightening experience.

When love fails, we must endure the painful process of letting go. I’ve managed to succeed at doing so by using this logic: The person you loved may look the same, laugh the same, have the same smile and voice. They have all the external characteristics of  who you fell for, but inside, they are no longer there. That person you fell in love with is non existent. While they may appear to be similar in a physical sense, you have to accept that whoever they were, when things were good, is gone and is never coming back. 

So often we strive to change them back into the person they used to be. We may see and hold onto glimpses of who they once were, but its not who they are now. Just a shell. Just a ghost.

I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t change anyone. You can’t fix anyone. Some people are not worth the rescuing. You can’t hold on to something that is not there. We all desperately need to seek out someone who fulfills us all of the time and not hold on to momentary glimpses of the ones we have lost. Sometimes you have to just stop and learn to let go.