A drunk Blair Waldorf said it best; “you can’t choose who you love, but you can choose how you love them, and there are some people you can only love by not being with them.” Love can be complicated and sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to, but we have to learn to be okay with the cards that life deals us.

I believe that loving someone means wanting to see them happy; no matter what, simply because seeing them smile brings joy to you as well. Being the reason for their happiness is an added bonus, but one that we do not always get. We all want our love to be enough for the people that we love, we hope that that can make them want to stay. But sometimes our love is not enough and sometimes we just aren’t right for the people that we care about so deeply. When that happens we have to learn to love them without being with them. We have to learn to love them in a way that is different from how we wish to. While this is difficult and sometimes heartbreaking; it’s ultimately for the best because we’re making them happy and in turn making ourselves happy in the long run, even though it may not seem like it at the time. The greatest gift you can give to someone you love is happiness and the easiest way to give that to them is by loving them the way that they ask you to.

There is an expression “holding on to someone who doesn’t love you back is like hugging a cactus; the tighter you hold on, the more it hurts.” Sometimes you have to realize that you’re holding on to something that’s doing more bad for you than good and that you would be happier if you would let it go. Letting go is hard and can even feel impossible at times. However, it does become easier when you learn that it isn’t about dismissing all of the things you had felt and removing that person from your life completely, but that it’s about changing the way you love them because you knew both of you would be better off for that. Sometimes you have to learn to love them as a friend and put that first because once you make being their friend the most important thing, everything else will fall into place. Letting go of someone doesn’t mean that they won’t continue to hold a special place in your heart. Learning to change the way that you love someone is a hard process but it can be much less painful than removing them from your life completely. As painful as not being able to love someone the way you want to is, it is for the best in the long run.

Sometimes we have to try to understand that everything happens for a reason and that no matter how hard something is that sometimes it is for the best. Learning that we are not always in control makes life so much easier, while it can be scary to feel like you’re not in control but there are things that we can’t change and sometimes we just have to accept that. Love is supposed to bring us joy, but when we try to force it, is when love starts to bring us nothing but pain. Life and love can be complicated but can also be so beautiful, we just have to let life run its course and have faith that everything will end up how it’s supposed to.