Picture this: you’ve met the person you feel like is the one. You feel like you’ve finally found your perfect fairytale relationship, and you’re so high with happiness that you can’t stand the thought of ever coming down. You’re doing something you thought you’d never do; you’re falling in love.

Then things start to change.

But you stay.

He calls less. “Well he’s busy, I don’t want him to think I’m clingy anyways. We all have things to do.” But you’re still constantly checking your phone to see if maybe he has called, but you just missed it.

Missed calls turn into missed dates. You try to convince yourself that he’s on his way, that traffic is holding him up. You get a text:

“Something came up, I won’t be able to make it tonight. Hope you understand.”

You’re upset, just like any other girl would be, but you try not to worry about it too much. “Things come up, it’s life. Nothing to worry about.”

You think everything is fine, so you move on. You tell your mom and she says that he’s no good for you, and it’ll get worse.

Then things become sketchy. You haven’t seen him in over a week. He rarely calls or texts. Now you begin to worry. Your friends tell you to leave him, but you can’t even imagine not being with him, so you ignore them and stay.

You finally have the chance to see him. He claims he’s been busy, and he’s sorry. You hug him, because all you want is for him to hold you and never let go. But you notice something odd; he smells like perfume (and not the kind you wear).

You question him, and he claims you’re crazy. Things become heated, words are flying, tempers are climbing, and you forget what you’ve been arguing about this whole time. He leaves you, because he’s done talking about this.

But you stay.

Things like this continue to happen and you continue to stay. You keep settling and brushing things off so much that your companion finds it okay to do things such as cheat, abuse, and misuse. But why, why do you keep hanging on?

You’re attached. You've already made it this far with him, so you don’t want to just walk away. You ignored your friends’ advice to drop him since he’s no good for you, so you’ll prove them right by letting go. You don’t want to lose. This is why we refuse to let go.

We refuse to accept that things are over, so we hold on. We refuse to let others tell us “I told you so”, so we hold on. We hold on for dear life to the things that aren’t even there anymore, because we refuse to run into disappointment or loneliness in the end.

It’s not just with relationships, it’s with everything in our lives. Like refusing to let go of our lucky pair of socks that we’ve been wearing for 4 years straight or just accepting that someone has exited our lives for good. We refuse to let go because we are afraid. We refuse to let go because all we’ve ever known how to do is hold on. We refuse to let go of our comfort zone because that’s all we’ve ever known. We hold on, and we fight, we scratch and claw and squeeze so hard until we’re holding onto something that’s become lost. This is why we hold on, and sometimes it’s okay.

It’s okay to hold on sometimes, but other times, it’s better for us that we let go of the things that are no good for us.

Let go of the things holding you back. Rather than refusing to let go of the bad, refuse to hold on. Refuse to hold on to the toxicity in your life. Refuse to hold onto people that do nothing to drag you down. Refuse to lose yourself. Refuse to settle.

Overall, you should do what is best for you. At the end of the day, it’s you who is left to deal with the decisions you’ve made. It’s you that will either benefit or suffer for the decisions you’ve made. So when it’s time to let go, let go. When you can still hold on, hold on. Do what makes you happy, and never settle for less than what you know you deserve; ever.