Category : Articles

Sub Category : Relationships

In this season of transition, one of the first things that’s immediately noticed is the temperature drop. It’s no longer shorts weather, but weather for raincoats, jackets and cardigans. The rain pours, the wind picks up and chills the land, and the sun doesn’t feel as warm as usual. When that warmth and comfort is a little harder to come by, it’s often when I start to be a little more mindful of keeping windows shut and closing doors more often. The season will change eventually, and I will once again be more open and receptive to the breezes entering my home, but not until the chill has left the air. 

I have had to officially close the door on a number of people I’ve been close to for many years. As patient and loving as I try to be, I still have my limits. There are those for whom I open the door of my heart more than any others, yet they don’t choose to reciprocate, aren’t emotionally available, refuse to communicate, and no longer bring me warmth—only an empty chill in the air. People, like seasons, do indeed change. Those who once stoked the fires of my passion, warmed my heart with love and my hands with their own sometimes grow cold in their respect and affection toward me. Yes, it happens. 

I used to wonder just what brought about the chill in their behaviors and made them change. I used to succumb to doubts about being good enough or question my very worth. Sometimes, I will never have closure or answers. Inevitably there comes a time to close the door to them, not because I ever stopped loving them or that I don’t wish things were different, rather that the chill that comes from leaving my heart wide open just gets to be too much. 

Seasons change; monsoon stops and sunny days flow once again, where maybe I might once again open myself to the elements of the heart. But in order to heal, to resume calm and order to my heart and home, it’s often just necessary, however painfully at times, to close the door.

Unconditional Love does not mean unconditional acceptance of bad behaviour - this is an important lesson which I have learned. 

Often it may be tempting to believe I can love the bad behavior out of others - love the abusive out of them, the abrasive treatment, the callous neglect of my feelings. But it just doesn’t work that way. Sometimes loving them means letting them learn their own lessons, letting them do their own work, and refusing to be their punching bag, in neither figurative nor literal ways. 

This world has perhaps lost sight of the value of tough love—the type of love that empowers growth instead of enabling the same excuses and deflecting. I am trying to find it in me to love them enough to allow them to work on their issues to be uncomfortable with their toxic ways, on their own. I have tried all that I can to make them see the injustice that they have done onto me but they will choose to see what they want to see and there is nothing I can do to change that. Playing them at their game is not going to solve anything, in fact, it would mean I am stooping down to their level. And I wouldn't go down to their level because I am better than that. 

It's time for me to walk away and close the book. Walk away with my head held high. Truth will prevail. It always does. I am at peace to move on with my life with a clear conscience.