Of Love and Letting Go

Seen & Heard by Adoyo
3 min readMay 19, 2024

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Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash

“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they’re yours for keeps. If they don’t, they were never yours to begin with.”

I mean, I don’t know how true this is. Well, I do know of a couple that met 20 years later and they’re now married and I want to believe, happy. So maybe there’s some truth in this old adage.

Though I’m also like 20 years is such a long time, right? But also, they did live full lives. They were not stuck in a moment waiting for each other.

They build other lives.

They had other experiences.

And is there really anything you wouldn’t do or give to have a moment with whoever you thought was your true love?

I don’t know cos I don’t know if I’ve already met my true love or not. If and when I do, I might come back here and let you know. 😊

For now though, what life has taught me, is that just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to be with them.

Love truly is not always enough.

I had a boyfriend. I loved him. He was ready for marriage. I wasn’t. I didn’t know when I’d be.

That was one of the worst heart breaks ever.

I cried my eyes out before I went to meet and break up with him.

He felt a little blindsided because, yes, we were OK. And, I could have had a good life with him; a great one even.

But, I didn’t think he would have had the same experience with me.

I wasn’t sure I would have made him as happy as I knew he would have.

I could’ve been selfish and just said yes because I knew what I was getting. But that thing called love wouldn’t let me.

Because love is not selfish; it is not self-seeking. It is kind and puts the needs of others first. Love does what’s best for it’s object, even to its own expense.

And so, I let him go.

I let him go and find what he was looking for because you can’t love someone out of their own path.

It was the right thing to do and the loving thing to do.

What that experience did is set me free. It allowed me to love without reservations. To trust that love will always do what’s right if we surrender to it.

Yes, sometimes it might hurt. However, the joy and beauty of just experiencing love is worth the grief when it has to close one door.

Letting go of someone you love doesn’t mean you didn’t love them enough. Sometimes, it’s just the right thing to do.

Caveat: you better make sure you’re being honest with yourself and you’re not just letting fear chase you away from what could be the greatest experience of your life.

Mhmm… cos some of us are out hear fear-talking ourselves out of love.

If you’re going to love, love with everything you’ve got. And if a time comes when you’ve got to let that love go, well then, be happy it happened and release it gladly.

Of course, you’ll miss it. And sometimes you might even wonder, “What if?” But if you acted from a place of truth and kindness and love, I promise, you’ll have more smiles than tears, even when you think of the closed door.

Have you had a similar experience or do you just think I’m some weird alien from Venus?

XO,

Moulding Beauty

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Seen & Heard by Adoyo

Storyteller exploring human connection & identity, writing to make people feel seen, understood, and enough through personal essays, profiles & themed stories.