He once met a woman who had just completed divorce procedures after more than ten years of living together. She recounted that what made her most regretful was not the broken marriage, but the feeling of not recognizing herself anymore. When she was young, she liked to read books, liked to "travel", liked to sit for hours in cafes, often just to admire the life ahead or just to write a few random lines. Then to follow the rhythm of family life, she gradually put everything aside. When the marriage ended, she looked around and discovered that the man had left, and the woman from years ago had also disappeared without knowing when.
That story is not uncommon. Some people, because they keep their jobs, have not dared to say what they think for many years. Some people, because they want to be loved, always nod even when their hearts want to refuse. Some people live according to the expectations of their parents, spouses, and society for so long that they forget what they really want. Initially, they were just very small concessions. But those small things accumulate day by day like a layer of dust covering the mirror. When we look back, we no longer see our own face clearly.
Humans are inherently very afraid of losing many things: Opportunities, lovers, job positions. So we often hold on tight. But life has a strange rule that the more we try to hold on at all costs, the easier it is for us to lose the most important things. Like holding sand in the palm of your hand, the stronger you squeeze, the more sand flows through the fingers. There are many things in life that do not belong to us. There are people who only go with us for a short distance, there are feelings that no matter how sincere they are, cannot turn into fate.
But people often confuse love and possession. We think that if we sacrifice a little more, that person will stay. If we endure a little more, everything will be better. If we trade a little more, happiness will come. We forget that what truly belongs to us does not need to be bought by our own disappearance. There is a question that very few people dare to ask themselves: If one day what we tried to keep last still leaves, then where will the parts of ourselves that have been lost on that journey be found again?
People often cry when others abandon them. But perhaps what is more crying is the moment of realizing that you have abandoned yourself a long time ago. In the end, the most difficult lesson of growing up is probably not learning to keep everything. But learning to keep yourself, even when a few things we love most have to leave.
