During the summer of 2014, I worked in a nearby city as a coach for a kids’ swim team. I loved going to work every day, mostly because I truly enjoyed working with the kids, but partly because of the gorgeous scenery that surrounded the outdoor pool. Most of the city was filled with very tall office buildings and apartment complexes, but next to the pool was a gorgeous, quaint park. When I arrived to coach practice each day, I would purposely park my car as far away from the pool as I could so that I could walk on the park’s trail through the tall trees all the way until I reached the pool.

Normally on my walks through the park, nothing strange would happen. Strangers and I would exchange smiles, squirrels would be running all over, and parents would hold their children’s hands as they enjoyed the park together. However, one day, I noticed something that made me stop and think for a few minutes.

The night before, there had been a massive thunderstorm in the city. Many leaves and branches of trees had fallen off due to high winds. One of the tallest, biggest trees in the park, a grand oak that appeared to be very strong and healthy, had an extremely large limb falling off. It appeared that lightning had struck the limb, causing it to be halfway ripped from the tree trunk. This limb was huge and heavy and caused the entire tree to bend a little in the effort to remain intact.

I remember looking at the tree and thinking, “It would be so much better for the tree if it would just let the limb go.”

This thought stopped me in my tracks, as I realized how eerily it could also have been applied to a struggle I had been going through at the time.

Suddenly, everything started to make sense in my mind. The limb needed to be chopped off completely; it was too heavy and the tree could not keep supporting it. Just like the tree, I could not keep supporting the weight of the struggle I was refusing to let go of. I kept holding on, hoping one day everything would suddenly be fixed. Although I refused to admit it at the time, I knew in my heart that what I was holding on to had already gone and there was no way of bringing it back, just as the limb of the tree was already falling off and dying and there was no way to somehow reattach it to the tree.

A few days passed, and the limb was still barely attached to the rest of the tree; it was just hanging there, the leaves already dead, pulling on the rest of the tree. I knew if it was not chopped off eventually, the whole tree would die.

About a week later, as I was walking to the pool through the park, I noticed the limb was finally removed from the tree and the tree looked just as strong as before, just a little different in appearance since it was missing such a huge limb. However, it was still the same tree, with the same height, and the same grand appearance.

This tree, which made me think and taught me more than I would have ever expected, continues to be a symbol in my memory of the importance of letting things go. At the time I saw it, I was trying to let go of a boy. I knew I needed him out of my life, but I still had the hope that things would work out. I kept a few ties between us, which didn’t allow me to move on, until one day I finally decided to completely remove everything that was keeping him in my life.

We often keep people in our lives that we know aren’t good for us, but long for what we once had, the happiness they once brought us, or the promises they once made. We want so badly for all of the dreams we have with certain people to come true, but we don’t recognize the fact that holding on to them and keeping them in our lives or thoughts is holding us back from our new potential happiness, apart from them. Trying to hold on so tightly to people who have already left or cause nothing but sadness is poison for our minds and hearts. Just like the limb had to be cut from the tree for the sake of the tree’s future, we have to let go of those who are not good for us in order to move on and be happy.

Letting go is painful, but after it comes, the beautiful hope and happiness of finally being free.