how i could be mad
a few days ago, i saw a reel on instagram asking:
"how could i be mad at someone for choosing what's best for them?"
at first, i thought that was all love asked of us.
love becomes a long practice of letting go. we want the people we love to be happy, to find a life that feels good in their hands, even when that life asks them to walk away from us. there is something generous in loving someone that way.
i want to be the kind of person who can look at their happiness and mean it when i say i am glad, who can want their peace even when i am no longer part of it.
still, the question keeps returning to me. at what cost?
why does anger make me feel like a villain? when they choose to leave, i understand that they have their reasons. i understand that a person has to choose the life they can live with. but the moment i feel hurt, i begin to worry that i am making their choice about me.
why does wanting to hold on make me feel like a bad person, as if i am the prison keeper and they are only trying to escape? i never wanted to keep someone where they could no longer breathe. i only wanted to believe that what we had was worth staying for. i wanted time, honesty, and the chance to understand what was changing between us before it became something i had to mourn.
maybe i have confused love with being endlessly understanding. maybe i thought that loving them well meant receiving every loss with grace, even when it left me with questions i could not answer. i made their freedom feel more important than my own feelings, and then felt ashamed when those feelings asked to be heard.
can i just be mad?