The Art of Letting Go

by Rania Naim

They fade in and out as the years go on – a stray text message there, vague plans to meet back up there. They are the people who exist on your periphery – always a city or a plane ride or a time zone or a life stage away. They are the people you keep track of from a distance, scrolling through news feeds and checking in on at 2am when a disappointing night winds to a close. They are your maybe people, your someday people, your ‘what-if-in-a-different-world’ people, who offer the possibility you’re lacking in this one.

Maybe we need to leave some doors open and some chapters unwritten. Maybe it’s those maybes that keep us alive.

Because the truth about the lovers we cannot let go of is that maybe we don’t want to ever realize each other’s potential. Maybe we all like having someone to fantasize absentmindedly about, to send an open-ended text to every now and then, to catch up with over a leisurely bottle of wine every two to three years, when the geography and timing is right. Maybe all these people make up parts of ourselves that we don’t want to ever fully realize, but want to keep alive.

When you’ve given so much of yourself to a relationship and to another person, it seems so much easier to stay, and hope that eventually they’ll magically be different, than it is to let go and move on.