Willow River

“You will not get over your ex all at once. You’ll get over them through a series of tiny, tender moments that bring you quietly back to yourself. And in some ways they’ll never really leave you. The people who change us in those big, irrevocable ways never do. To get over them we’d have to alter ourselves into people so unrecognizable that we’d lose who we are in the process. And so instead we learn to integrate the influence they had – the books you now read because of topics that they turned you on to. The music you now download because of the lyrics they loved. The ways you now look at the world that would never had occurred to you if they had not opened your eyes up to seeing and doing things differently. We don’t ever lose people we love in their entirety and perhaps we never should – we ourselves become bigger, more encompassing people because of it. You’ll get over your ex the day you realize that you damn well may never get over them. That pieces of them are going to live on inside you forever and that discarding them would mean discarding parts of yourself. But the day that you get to move on is the day you simply decide to do so in spite of it – in spite of the tired, restless ache that begs you not to take a chance. In spite of the fearful, self-conscious mind that tells you nobody will ever love you better. In spite of every careless part of you that wants to keep holding on but knows that it needs to let go. The day when you finally move on is the day you decide move forward – with all of your fear, all your pain and all your subtle hesitations. It’s the day you finally get over yourself.”
― Heidi Priebe, This Is Me Letting You Go

“You stop waiting for someone to come back through a series of slow, deliberate steps that move you away from the life you thought you’d have and towards the one that’s waiting for you. It’s the life that shows up once you make the conscious, uncomfortable decision to leave the past behind. To learn from the people you’ve lost and to embrace the people that you have left. To embrace the life you have left. And to bring yourself back to it as fully and wholly as you wish that you could bring back someone else.”
― Heidi Priebe, This Is Me Letting You Go

“When you’re tired, go slowly. Go quietly. Go timidly. But do not stop. You are tired for all the right reasons. You are tired because you’re supposed to be. You’re tired because you’re making a change. You are exhausted for all the right reasons and it’s only an indication to go on. You are tired because you’re growing.”
― Heidi Priebe, This Is Me Letting You Go

“When every new beginning is just another reminder of each painful ending that preceded it, you are not ready to start over.”
― Heidi Priebe, This Is Me Letting You Go