Let Life Happen
I think I’ve reached a point where I’m tired of fighting everything. The situations, the changes, the people, the things I can’t control, and sometimes even my own thoughts. I’ve spent so much time trying to understand why things happen the way they do, why people change, why some relationships don’t last, and why things I thought were certain can suddenly become so different. I keep going over things in my head, trying to figure out what I missed or what I could have done differently. And honestly, I’m getting tired of giving so much of my time to things I can’t go back and change.
It wasn’t one particular day that brought me here. It happened slowly. I started keeping more things to myself. I’d type out a message, read it a few times, and then delete it. Sometimes I would want to tell someone that something had hurt me, but I would end up saying it was fine because I didn’t have the energy to explain why it wasn’t. I got used to carrying things around without talking about them. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I wasn’t sure what would happen if I said it.
There were nights when I’d sit with my phone in my hand, scrolling through my contacts and stopping at names I hadn’t called in months. Some of those people used to know everything going on in my life. We could talk about absolutely nothing for an hour and somehow feel better afterward. Now I’d look at their names and wonder if it would be strange to call. Would we pick up where we left off? Would I have to explain why I’d been quiet? Would they even understand what I was trying to say?
I’d put the phone down and go back to whatever I was doing. Sometimes I’d make something to eat, leave it sitting on the counter, and realize an hour later that I hadn’t touched it. Other times I’d just sit there with the television on, barely paying attention to what was playing. The house would be quiet, but my mind wouldn’t be. I could spend an entire evening thinking about one conversation that probably hadn’t crossed the other person’s mind since it happened.
I’ve also started noticing how often I’ve made excuses for people. I’ve told myself they were busy, that they had a lot going on, that maybe they didn’t realize how their actions came across. I’ve tried to look at things from every possible angle before allowing myself to admit that something hurt. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to understand people. I just don’t think understanding someone should always come at the expense of understanding myself.
There have been times when I’ve been more concerned about how someone else might feel hearing the truth than I was about how I felt keeping it to myself. I’ve worried about sounding upset, being misunderstood, making things uncomfortable, or asking for more than someone was willing to give. So I’d say less. I’d let things slide. I’d convince myself it wasn’t worth bringing up. Then, eventually, I’d find myself upset about something that had been bothering me for months.
And I don’t want to keep doing that.
It’s not that I expect people to get everything right. I don’t. I know people have their own lives, their own problems, and their own reasons for doing what they do. I’ve made mistakes too. But there’s a difference between understanding that people aren’t perfect and constantly overlooking things that leave you feeling like you don’t matter. I can acknowledge that someone may not have meant to hurt me and still be honest about the fact that they did.
For a long time, I thought I needed certain conversations before I could move forward. I wanted people to explain what happened, acknowledge what changed, or at least be honest about why they stopped showing up. I thought if I could hear their side, maybe everything would make more sense. But some conversations never happen. Some people don’t reach out. Some never ask how you’re doing, even when they know things haven’t been easy. And sometimes the silence goes on long enough that you have to accept it for what it is.
I still don’t like that part. I don’t think I’ll ever be someone who can easily walk away from people or situations that meant something to me. I remember things. I remember little details, conversations, places, and things people probably don’t even realize I held onto. I can be doing something completely unrelated and suddenly remember a day from years ago. It doesn’t take much. A song playing over the speakers in a grocery store, a familiar smell, a certain time of year, or driving past somewhere I haven’t been in a long time.
A few weeks ago, I heard a song while walking through the grocery store. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. I was looking for something on the shelves, trying to remember what else I needed, when the song started playing. For a moment, I wasn’t really in that store anymore. I was thinking about a time in my life, the people who were part of it, and how different things are now. Then someone reached around me to grab something from the shelf, and I moved my cart so they could get by. I finished shopping, paid for everything, loaded the bags into my car, and went home.
Nothing dramatic happened. The day just carried on. But I thought about that moment later. How something can still mean something to you even when you know you can’t return to it. How you can miss a person, a place, or even a version of your life without wanting everything back exactly as it was.
I think I’ve been learning that missing something doesn’t necessarily mean I need to do something about it. I don’t have to send the message. I don’t have to reopen a conversation just because I thought about someone. I don’t have to keep trying to bring a relationship back to what it used to be. Sometimes I can just miss it and leave it there. That’s still difficult for me, but I’m beginning to understand that not every feeling needs to turn into an action.
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Life has changed in ways I never really planned for. Some relationships have changed, some plans didn’t work out, and there are things I once felt sure about that I don’t even recognize now. I’ve had to make decisions without having all the information I wanted. I’ve had to start over in certain areas of my life when I wasn’t ready to start over. And there have been times when I’ve looked around and wondered how I ended up somewhere so different from where I thought I’d be.
I used to spend a lot of time comparing where I was to where I thought I should be by now. I’d think about the plans I had made, the things I expected to happen, and the people I thought would still be around. It could turn an otherwise perfectly good day into one where I felt like I was behind in my own life. I’d see other people moving forward, making plans, reaching milestones, and wonder why things had taken such a different route for me.
But I don’t always know what’s happening in someone else’s life, and I don’t think comparing the two gets me anywhere. I have my own things to figure out. Some of them will take time. Some may not turn out the way I want. I can make plans, change my mind, try again, and still not know exactly where I’m going. Maybe that’s just where I am right now.
I also want to stop treating every quiet moment like something is wrong. There are days when nothing particularly exciting happens. I go to work, come home, make dinner, straighten up a little, and get ready to do it all again the next day. Sometimes I look forward to the weekend and then spend half of it doing laundry, running errands, or catching up on things I didn’t get to during the week. It’s ordinary, and I think I’ve overlooked how much of life actually happens in those ordinary moments.
I want to enjoy those days without feeling like I should be somewhere else or doing something more important. I want to sit outside when the weather is nice, have my coffee without rushing, take a drive because I feel like it, or make plans without wondering whether they’ll fall through. I want to laugh and not immediately think about everything that’s been difficult lately. I want to be present for the good parts instead of allowing the things that didn’t work out to take up all the space.
And I know there will still be days when I don’t feel that way. There will be mornings when something feels heavier than it should. There will be nights when I think about people I haven’t spoken to in a long time or wonder how a situation might have turned out if someone had handled it differently. I’m not expecting those thoughts to disappear. I just don’t want to spend every day giving them my attention.
I think one of the hardest things has been realizing that I can’t keep putting my life on hold until everything makes sense. I can’t wait for someone else to decide they want to be part of my life again. I can’t keep waiting for an apology before allowing myself to enjoy what’s in front of me. And I can’t keep looking for the right explanation for every change, especially when the people involved may never give me one.
That doesn’t mean I won’t care. I will. I still care about people I’ve had to step away from. I still wish some things had gone differently. I still hope certain people are doing well, even if I don’t know anything about their lives anymore. There are things I wish I could have said and moments I wish I could go back and handle differently. I don’t think I need to pretend otherwise to move forward.
I just want to be more careful about where I put my time and energy. I want to stop feeling guilty when I don’t reach out first, when I say no, or when I decide not to explain myself for the hundredth time. I want to give people room to be who they are without constantly trying to make their choices fit what I hoped they would be. And I want to give myself that same room.
Maybe letting life happen is simply accepting that I don’t get to control every outcome. I can do my part, make my choices, care about people, and try to do right by them. But I can’t make someone communicate, I can’t make a relationship stay the same, and I can’t force things to happen on the timeline I had in mind.
I don’t want to become indifferent. I don’t want to stop making an effort or stop looking forward to things. I just don’t want to keep exhausting myself trying to hold onto what has already changed.
So I’ll keep making plans. I’ll keep answering the people who reach out and making an effort with the people who make an effort with me. I’ll have days when I feel good and days when I don’t. I’ll probably still type a message and delete it sometimes. I’ll still hear a song and remember something I thought I’d stopped thinking about. That’s part of being a person, I suppose.
But I also want to make room for what is happening now. Not just the difficult things, but the good things too. The unexpected phone call, the afternoon that turns out better than I expected, the coffee that gets cold because I’m sitting outside longer than I planned, and the ordinary days that don’t need to become anything more than what they are.
I don’t know exactly what the next part of my life will look like. I have things I still want, things I need to work on, and things I haven’t figured out. For once, I don’t want to spend all my time trying to get ahead of it.
I want to see what happens when I stop trying to force every piece into place. I want to live my life while it’s happening, even when it’s messy, even when I don’t have all the answers, and even when some things are still hard to accept.
I think I’m ready to let life happen a little. Not because everything is okay, but because I don’t want to miss everything else while I’m waiting for it to be.
