People Leave Anyway, So Don’t Leave Yourself

Lately, I have been exploring some uncomfortable truths about myself. Not the polished truths. Not the inspirational social media truths. The real ones. The kind that emerge after therapy sessions, long walks, difficult conversations, and quiet moments when there is nowhere left to hide. One realization has been particularly difficult to accept: I have spent much of my life putting myself in situations that confirmed what I already believed. I believed people leave. I believed love was difficult. I believed relationships required sacrifice, struggle, endurance, and disappointment. And because those beliefs lived beneath my awareness, I often found myself attracted to situations that proved them true. The mind has a funny way of doing that. It seeks familiarity, not necessarily happiness. If struggle is familiar, ease can feel suspicious. If uncertainty is familiar, stability can feel boring. If love has always been complicated, uncomplicated love can feel unreal. I can see now that I wasn’t simply looking for love. I was often looking for confirmation. Confirmation that my worldview was correct. Confirmation that people leave. Confirmation that love hurts. Confirmation that I would eventually end up disappointed. One of the hardest insights to acknowledge is that I have often preferred challenge over ease. In school, business, and personal growth, this trait has served me well. In relationships, not so much. Somewhere along the way, I confused challenge with value. I confused pursuit with connection. I confused struggle with depth. I confused earning love with receiving it. Looking back, many of my romantic relationships were humiliating. Humiliating in how they began. Humiliating in how they unfolded. Humiliating in how they ended. There were betrayals, disappointments, broken promises, and moments that still make me cringe when I think about them. For years, I believed the answer was to become more strategic. More careful. More controlling. More vigilant. If I could just manage the variables, perhaps I could avoid another painful ending. What I failed to understand was that relationships are not projects. They are not nursing assessments. They are not business plans. They are not problems to solve. People reveal themselves over time. Patience is not passive. Patience is information gathering. I often wanted certainty before I had enough information to create it. I wanted to know where things were going before the road had revealed itself. That impatience cost me. But I also see now that there was something else operating beneath the surface. My mother. For years, I unconsciously postponed my own life. I did not want to leave her behind. I did not want her jealousy. I did not want her criticism. I did not want her guilt. I did not want to become the daughter who moved on. So I waited. And waited. And waited. What I have finally learned is that some people cannot give you permission to live your life. Not because they are evil. Not because they do not care. But because your freedom shines a light on their limitations. Eventually, every adult child must stop waiting for permission. Not necessarily leave the parent. But leave the waiting room. That distinction matters. Another truth emerged during my reflection. I realized that I have spent much of my life believing that my value came from being useful. As a nurse. As a caregiver. As a helper. As a fixer. As a problem solver. As someone who could carry the weight. But what happens when nobody needs anything from you? Who are you then? That question makes me deeply uncomfortable. I am accustomed to having a role. A duty. A purpose. A task. Without one, I sometimes feel anxious, exposed, and oddly useless. That realization led me to a painful childhood belief: “If I stop being useful, nobody will stay.” The adult in me knows that is not entirely true. The child in me still isn’t so sure. When I imagined speaking to my ten-year-old self, I found myself saying something unexpected: “People are going to leave anyway, so don’t leave yourself.” That sentence hit me harder than I expected. Because people do leave. Relationships end. Children grow up. Friends move away. Parents die. Communities change. Nothing is permanent. The goal is not to prevent loss. The goal is to stop abandoning yourself in an attempt to prevent it. As a hospice nurse, I have spent years watching people lose the people they love most. I have watched spouses grieve decades-long marriages. I have watched children say goodbye to parents. I have watched families shatter under the weight of illness and death. Sometimes I wonder if those experiences taught me to focus on the ending. Why invest in love if one day it will hurt? Why open your heart if one day it will break? But recently I realized something. The ending does not invalidate the middle. The fact that a book ends does not make it worthless. The fact that a hike ends does not make it meaningless. The fact that a relationship may one day end does not mean it wasn’t worth experiencing. Perhaps the deeper question is not whether love lasts forever. Perhaps the question is whether I am willing to become attached to things that are temporary. I don’t know the answer yet. What I do know is this: I am tired of writing the ending before the story begins. I am tired of assuming I won’t fit in. I am tired of deciding in advance that I will never find what I am looking for. So I am doing something different. I am showing up. To the hiking groups. To the festivals. To the community events. To life. Not once. Repeatedly. Not because I expect a miracle. Not because I expect to find my soulmate around the next corner. But because I want evidence for a new story. A story where belonging is built slowly. A story where connection grows through repetition. A story where I remain present long enough for strangers to become familiar. A story where I stop abandoning myself. People may leave. Life may disappoint. Love may arrive late. But I think I will be all right. And for the first time in a very long time, I believe that might be enough.