How do you know when to say goodbye? Well that is tricky and depends on what type of goodbye you are talking about? Do you mean the actual passing of loved one or simply letting go of a toxic person from your life? These are two very different types of goodbyes, and yet they are both very important to the person that needs the closure to move on with their own life. I can say from experience I have had to do both, and while neither of them are enjoyable experiences, you must encounter them head on to deal with the situation in order to move on in your own life.
First lets talk about closure when some you love passes. This is an enviable cycle of life the one day we will all deal with, whether it be your grandparents, parents, sibling or God forbid your own children. No matter at what age you are faced with this challenge you will never be ready for it, however if you have lived you life correctly you will not have to rush to a bedside and say a lot of things you have always wanted too. The worst thing is to live an unauthentic life where you find you yourself asking for forgiveness or making peace with another soul at the end of their lives under the pressure of pulling the plug. Let’s face it, if you spent your life treating that individual badly and then you sudden become an empathic soul now that they are dying you are just a psychopath! You only feel badly because of your own guilt which you created, however if you had always been kind, or if said everything you had ever wanted to say, you would have left nothing out there that you wished you had told them while they were alive, and that would have been an authentic relationship.
I recently watched individuals rush to the bedside of a dying man, this man had been the focus this families jokes, he had been mistreated for years by his family and even his own daughter avoided seeing him because she “could not deal with him”. When they found out he was dying everyone was so upset, lost their minds and rushed from out of state to have one last moment of closure with him before he died, even though they refused to be there for him when he really needed them towards the end. This entire charade was to make their souls feel better, to ask him to forgive their unspeakable actions and trespasses upon him, which is a little disgusting if you ask me. It was kind of hard to to bare witness too, but it is a prime example of the world we live in every day. It is that ask for forgiveness later mentality, which sadly has been fostered by the church in way, by asking sinner to repent to be saved for unspeakable actions nobody should really be forgiven from on this plane.
The other type of goodbye is when you let go of the toxic people in your life. For me, it has been some the closest people in my life. People I never thought I would never grow apart from, but I did, and it was truly shocking. To let these individuals go was hard at first, but now I do not really even think much about it anymore; which is sad considering how much they once meant to me. It is funny, in retrospect I think, I may have cared more for them than they ever thought of me or ever reciprocated. Which is why and how I ended up just letting them go over time. This is true for both myself and my husband, as we have eliminated close friends and even family members over the past few years. My husband has always worried that from an outsiders prospective it would appear that we might be very cold or callous people; when ironically it is not that way at all. We actually are very giving people; we gave and gave to a fault. We gave so much to people that never actually appreciated anything we offered them; it was just always expected from us. We were taken for granted, used, and abused by those closest to us, and then when it suited them they would flip the script and make us out to be villains in the story every single time. So why not just be the villain? Why do we have to be the good ones? Why do as we are told and expected to do? Makes you think right? Yeah so we just walked right out, blazing our own path, to do what was best for us and burned those bridges straight to the ground; since that is what everyone else does in life, right? Maybe now it is our turn? The hardest thing we had to realize was that we always cared more them than they ever cared for us.
Saying goodbye can be so very liberating in so many ways. It frees you. It allows you to be the person you were always meant to be; no guilt, no expectations, no living in confines of others peoples standards or ideals. Saying goodbye can help you put things into prospective. Saying goodbye helps you to regain control back into your life that was stolen from you long ago. No one deserves that control but you. Let’s be honest if you won’t put up with that shit from your own blood relatives, why on earth would you put up with it from anyone else? Hmmm, like your under performing boss, a cheating spouse, your narcissistic gal pal, the crappy neighbors, the know it all PTA mom, or that bitchy little barista at Starbucks that never gets your order right. Yeah that’s right, get my order correct bitch, it is literally your only job! Am I right? And God forbid they try to gaslight you along the way, do you not think I see you coming a mile away? I raised on that type of behavior you must not know me, or be new here you need to re-plan your entire strategy cunt face.
Adios Assholes, See you in the rear view mirror
Veronica J.