The Kingdom of Philtopia

There are a lot of people in my life that I absolutely cherish. They are a part of who I am and I cannot see my life without them there in some manner. However as I get older I am starting to notice more and more that a lot of these people I value do not see to value me in the same manner and I notice how much effort I am having to put in just to keep them barely around in my life.

Fine, I won’t stop you from going

They say if you truly love someone you should let them go and if they come back then they love (or in this case value) you too. If they don’t then they never did. I have been letting people go for over the last couple years now. I’ve started to be able to tell when they are just absorbing my own effort and not putting forth any of their own. In some cases they will eventually come back and make an effort to me, when this happens it is wonderful and the friendship continues on as it should and maybe even better. Sometimes a long time will pass and I have to accept that they aren’t coming back and that I did not matter.

This is a very painful moment

It hurts a lot to realize you don’t matter to someone that matters to you but it allows you to let go and stop being dependent on their validation. You can take this negative and make it positive. You can use it to learn the signs of an unhealthy friendship or a relationship and this allows you to make better choices for yourself in the future.

In the last 3 years I have let many people go and each one that doesn’t come back hurts but the remaining whole is better than it was before. I can work on the friendships and relationships that remain and I feel much more emotionally involved in what’s left than I did before. There are still people left who I don’t see putting in the ‘effort’ that I do to keep them in my life and eventually I’ll have to let them go too.

I hope some of them decide to stay.