By Brittany Davis
We all have that someone that we know is bad for us. The one we can’t let go of. We sit and hope that we’re going to be the person who makes it different, the one who changes the game. We hope that despite what we know about them, we’ll be the one to make them better and ultimately better for us. But we all know the rules and we rarely see the exceptions. We know people don’t really change even though we wish they would. We see them modify. We watch them adapt, but that’s all temporary. It’s never anything permanent, and ultimately, the small differences you see are never enough. The reality is: you are never going to make them change.
If you can’t be with someone as they are, realize that. Don’t make them out to be something they’re not. Don’t try and make them the person you wish they’d become. The sooner you accept them for who they are the sooner you can realize what they aren’t; and that’s usually that they aren’t right for you. Realize that they’re not going to magically become the thing you deserve. Sure, they may continue to be what you think you need and what you want, but have you ever stopped and thought that maybe what you want and what you deserve are two different things?
You don’t need to be with someone who doesn’t appreciate your worth, but you sure as hell deserve to be with someone who does. You don’t need to cater to someone’s every want and desire, but you sure as hell deserve to be with someone who would try. Sometimes you have to let go of what you want and remember what it is you deserve. You deserve to be happy, to be with someone who truly appreciates what they have, to love you. But you’re love for them should never outweigh what you deserve. Never let love make you settle for less; make it make you strive for more.
At a certain point you have to find the courage to admit when things aren’t working. You have to acknowledge that sometimes letting go actually makes you stronger than holding on. Sometimes you just have to move on even if you’re heart is still with them. Sometimes the tears you cry have to be ones that you cause. Staying with them out of convenience, comfort, because you don’t want to be alone, those reasons aren’t enough. You deserve more and it’s not going to make things any different. If characters and plots are the same, adding chapters isn’t going to change how the story ends. In life, sometimes stories have to end unhappily and before you feel they’re finished. Sometimes these endings leave us confused and hurt. Embrace them. They give us the ability to write our own.
They create opportunities for new stories to start. In life there’s rarely that moment where the other person’s eyes open and everything clicks; that moment of clarity seldom happens. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen within you. Let this be it. Let this be the moment you realize that you’re settling for less than you deserve. Let yourself see it. Face it, dead on. Take that step and don’t look back. Keep the past in the past. The more you revisit the past the more you enable it to determine your future. Be the person who has the strength to let go. The person willing to be miserable if it means that they’ll soon be happy. Embrace the pain walking away will create and revel in it. Remember that it is pain of your own devices, not of their neglect. Never stop loving yourself because of their inability to reciprocate it. Measure you’re worth in your own eyes, not in the reflection of another. You’re worth so much more than you know. So go and take that step because nobody deserves to know just how much, more than you.
