The Difference Between Moving On And Letting Go

To be honest, I lied.

All those times I told everyone that I’d start loving myself, a part of my soul knew I was lying. A part of me has been slowly dying ever since we parted ways and I never once looked at it, so now years later, it’s beginning to rot, and the smell is starting to distract me. A part of me – since you’ve been gone – was slowly fading into an abyss, and I didn’t bother trying to get it back; I just stared at it like an astronaut losing a button of his suit in space. A part of me was left in the same place where you walked away.

And the weird thing is that I realized all these as I looked into a complete stranger’s face and reminded me of you in him. There was a resemblance, I admit. But even if I knew that he was a different person, I missed him. I missed you. I missed you in him.

That’s how stranded I was.

The art of moving on and letting go, I’ve realized, are entirely different from each other. I have let go but I haven’t moved on. Especially for a hopeless romantic like me, memories are traps which held me back from making more of them. Having let go meant I have accepted whatever happened between us but deep inside me, I was not in any way content with it. It’s something I just had to do because I had no other choice, and because I had to live my life. Moving on, on the other hand, means that I’ve gained power. It means that my wounds have healed and God, they haven’t.

For letting go may have given me peace but my not moving on only held me back. Years may have passed, but I’m still here where you left me. They say when moving on becomes your only choice, you just have to do it. But because I didn’t, I just learned to live a double life: a life that no longer loved you on the outside, and another life that craved your presence on the inside.

And now as I admit all these things, the only things I wish for are more feelings, ironically. They can either be feelings for myself so huge they finally remind me of the wreckage inside and the need for my hands to repair these broken pieces, or feelings for someone else to whom I can shower all the love that has been trapped amidst the darkness. I wish for either of these feelings to bloom so beautifully I believe in love’s goodness again.

It’s scary, I know, but I need it now more than ever. Because one way or another, I have to face and accept the fact that I have to grow. I have to look at more strangers’ faces and be strong enough not to miss you, or better yet, be healed enough not to be reminded of you. I have to move on, because only then can I think of you and not feel longing or hope or love or us.