So many of us are afraid of people leaving our lives that we start to keep people from getting to close to save us from the pain of the inevitable loss. Our culture seems to tell us that if a relationship isn’t forever, that it isn’t valuable. We pride ourselves on having BFF’s and no matter how new a relationship is, we are already planning our future with that person. The thing is, I’m not sure that most relationships are meant to be forever. What if instead, people are meant to be seasons in our lives? And if we can realize that people are seasons, can we appreciate what they bring into our lives and allow them to be there while we have them?
What’s interesting, is I have found myself over the past few weeks asking a lot of people this question… Think of someone who used to be in your life and was important to you but that isn’t any longer. Now imagine that right now I could take all the pain away from the loss of the relationship, but you would also have to give me all the good, the support, the fun also, would it be worth it. Overwhelming, people have shared that they wouldn’t want to lose the good and that that person helped through a lot.
Sure, losing someone is painful but that doesn’t get rid of all of the good from that relationship, and most of us would never want to trade the good just to save the pain. Here’s the thing though, when we guard ourselves from new relationships, or push people away, because we “know” that they will leave…that’s what we’re doing. We’re trading all the good that could come from that relationship, the support, the fun, the stories, in the belief that it will save us pain of what we feel to be the inevitable loss.
We also don’t know that the loss is inevitable, and even if it is, we may be saving the pain of them leaving, but we aren’t saving the pain of being alone. Pain and loss are part of the human experience…we all will experience it. And when we don’t let people in to try to avoid it, we simply rob ourselves of the good, because the pain the loneliness will still be there when we don’t have someone; whether it’s because they left/we pushed them away, or we never allowed them to be there in the first place.
Perhaps, it’s okay for people to be seasons in our life and for us to enjoy them while we have them. There is no guarantee for how long we will have them, but is it worth robbing ourselves of that season because it may end? To take that analogy a bit further, should I not go build a snowman this winter because eventually it will be too warm for snow and I’ll be sad that I can’t build one in May; or should I embrace the experience now while I have it? Because I also know, the next season will have something good to offer too even if it’s different.