This can be a very difficult time. You may resist. You may try to keep opening that door. Perhaps you feel a 'guilt', you feel like maybe it is your fault that they don't want to be in your life anymore. You reach out over and over, and the response is less and less. A phone conversation abruptly ended. An email conversation strangely stopped with no closure. You sit there and you wonder what YOU did to make them not want to be in your life anymore.
After they've closed that door, you still prop it open, thinking maybe they'll change their mind. Maybe they'll WANT to be in your life again. Maybe they'll realize how much they've missed all these years. Maybe they'll realize all the time that has gone by. Maybe they'll realize that now they are a stranger in the life of someone they could be close with.
Over the years it gets to a point that phone calls are strange and uncomfortable, so they stop. It gets to a point that social media messaging is pointless and meaningless.
Only to feel guilt again "WAIT is it ME?" - "what did I do to chase them away?" - "what did I NOT do?"
Then you APOLOGIZE.
WHAT? You break down and apologize. A heartfelt apology, you think of everything they MUST be thinking. You ASSume WHY they've stepped away from you life. You feel that it MUST be you, so you say 'sorry'.
Only, once again, to be slapped in the face by reality because you once again opened the door realizing you apologized even though it was not you.
Time goes on, and even though you regretfully said you were sorry (for nothing since it was never YOU to begin with) You STILL don't give up. You open the door, time and time again, wide arms welcoming, ready to get past all the BS. STILL, nothing. No show. Cancellation. Excuse. No show.
Years and years, pain and tears, you repeat the cycle. Years and years you pin it to YOU and the fact that YOU must have done something wrong. You start thinking about what OTHER people are thinking. What have these other people been told, so you feel you need to keep trying so that YOU are not the one that 'gave up'.
Until one moment, one brief little span of time, where it becomes SO crystal CLEAR. There was a moment of connection, a glimmer of hope, then something else in that brief moment becomes more important that you. Making it painfully obvious that if something else is more important than you, in this little moment, that could have changed everything, they decide that something ELSE must take priority. In this spec of time, you realize that you just are not that important. Otherwise they would have made TIME for you in that moment. They would have MADE time for you all those years. It is this instant that you realize, perhaps for the first time, that they have made a conscious choice NOT to be a part of your life. They have made a CONSCIOUS CHOICE not to be in your life.For me it was a huge AH HA moment. Years of emotions flowed through me. It was in this moment that I decided to let the door close. I decided to be 'done' with the whole thing. It was time to stop blaming myself for something that had nothing to do with ME.
"When someone walks out of your life, let them. There's no use in wasting your time on people that leave you. What you make of yourself and your future is no longer tied to them. Yea, you may miss them, but remember that you weren't the one who gave up".
NOW I finally realize it was NOT me.
I still don't know WHY. I still don't UNDERSTAND. I've analyzed it over and over in my head. I've played every possible scenario. All I know is that I no longer can put myself through the torment.
I'm not taking the fall for this any more. I'm not feeling the guilt for this any more. I'm not feeling the pain for this any more. I'm not feeling the shame for this any more.
I have done. I have not 'tried', I have done, all I could possibly do.
Alethea Anderson
MultiMediaMom.com
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