My entire life I’ve heard the old saying that, “if you love something, you have to let it go.” For a long time, I thought that just sounded like something that was good to say but didn’t actually have a lot of meaning.

I’ve always been the person who holds on as tight as they can: to my friends, my family, and really anyone else in my life that I deem important. I want the people that I love to know that they are wanted and cherished, and at times I get obsessive about making sure people know that I care. I thought that this was the way to go; lately, I’ve been rethinking this state of mind.

Loving people is important, and I’m not changing stances on that. I do think that people need their space though. I’ve realized that at times the love I think I’m giving people is not in their best interest but instead serves my own feelings. I never wanted that; it was never my intention to make things about me.

I think this is a cycle that we all fall into. We think that we’re doing something for the right reasons, but we’re doing it selfishly. This hurts for me to admit. I spend so much time thinking about the feelings of others that it’s painful for me to say that this is probably hurting the people I love more than helping them.

I get so upset and stressed about making sure other people are okay, that I end up simultaneously smothering them and becoming a person that I’m not interested in being. I don’t want to let go of people because I don’t want them to let go of me.

All too often, I take over relationships; I do all the work because I think it’ll make me a more appealing person in a relationship; it actually takes away from the other person’s ability to actually have a relationship with me.

I struggled with what to do about this for a long time. I thought that maybe I just needed to give up and become a hermit because I didn’t want to cause anyone any more pain with my suffocating love. This, unfortunately, was also a very selfish thought.

I’ve since come to understand that the best way for me to love people in my life is for me to let them go if they want me to. If my friends need space, then that’s what they’ll get. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to be friends anymore, but it does mean that I’ll be a person that isn’t necessarily prevalent in their lives.

At the end of the day, I want my friends to know that I love them and I’m there for them if they need me. I’m going to love people the way that they want to be loved, not the way I think they should be loved. Selflessness is something that is much harder to achieve than I realized, and I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.

If you feel like you’re In a similar predicament to mine, I urge you to let the people in your life go, because no matter how scary it is, they’re going to come back.