I think the one thing I’m the absolute worst at is letting go, especially letting go of people when they become toxic. Even when I know the flower is dead, I keep watering it. Maybe because of who I am as a person -- you know, one of those who tries to fix the most damaged of people -- but I struggle to cut the cord and sever the ties. Again and again I’ll go back to fix them, only to be disappointed, have my feelings hurt and be almost surprised it happened.

Maybe it’s the memories that keep me going back. The memories of us staying up until dawn, sitting on their bedroom floor, a cheap bottle of wine between us, laughing at everything and nothing. Or maybe it was when we were driving down the interstate and a certain song started playing and we turned the volume all the way up, singing at the top of our lungs, and looked at each other --the smiles on our faces saying everything we weren’t. It’s memories like those that make me fall in love with people. And I don’t mean specifically romantically, just with who they are as a person.

Then, when things change and they aren’t the person they were in those moments, I struggle. The person I sat up with until dawn is now the person who crosses the street when we see each other, to keep from having to speak. I know I need to let go; people change, I understand that. But there is just something about the idea that people can change so much that who they were as I remember them to be is so far gone, a distant memory, that I can’t accept. I fight it and keep reaching for that memory until the point comes where they do something that the old them would've never done and it’s a slap in the face. And, like previously stated, I’m left there like I didn’t expect it, like I’m surprised that’s who they’ve become.

This year has been full of a lot of that. Full of holding on for far too long. Full of too many times I’m left hurt by things I saw coming and stood there and took. I don’t usually make New Years resolutions for myself, but for 2017, I am. In 2017, I am letting go of all things when those things show it’s time to. No holding on, no weighing myself down, no watering dead flowers.