I Didn’t Want to Lose Them
by Tawnia Lives
I didn’t want to lose them.
That’s what made it so hard.
People talk about letting go as if it’s some empowered decision.
As if one day you wake up, see the truth, and simply walk away.
That wasn’t my experience.
I loved many of those people.
Some of them I still do.
I wanted them to come with me.
I wanted us to grow together.
I wanted the conversations to get healthier.
I wanted the honesty to bring us closer.
I wanted healing to strengthen the relationship.
I didn’t expect it to expose it.
For a long time, I thought healing would bring people closer.
I didn’t expect some relationships to become harder the moment I started being honest.
The moment I started saying what I actually felt.
The moment I stopped apologizing for having needs.
The moment I stopped carrying responsibilities that never belonged to me.
The moment I stopped making myself smaller so everyone else could stay comfortable.
That’s when the distance started.
Not because I stopped caring.
Not because I stopped loving them.
Because I stopped abandoning myself.
And if you’ve ever lived through that, you know how confusing it can be.
Because nobody tells you this part.
Nobody tells you that healing can feel like grief.
Nobody tells you that some of the people you fought the hardest to keep may become uncomfortable when you stop disappearing inside the relationship.
For a long time, I thought that meant I had done something wrong.
I thought I had become selfish.
Too sensitive.
Too difficult.
I spent so much time trying to figure out how to explain myself better.
How to make them understand.
How to find the right words that would somehow bring everything back together again.
Because I didn’t want distance.
I didn’t want separation.
I didn’t want to outgrow anyone.
I just couldn’t keep losing myself to stay connected.
That was the part I couldn’t see at first.
I thought I was fighting for the relationship.
What I was really fighting for was permission to exist inside it.
Permission to have needs.
Permission to have boundaries.
Permission to be a whole person instead of the version of me that kept everything running.
The version of me that absorbed the tension.
The version of me that carried the emotional weight.
The version of me that kept making room, even when there was no room left for me.
Healing changed that.
Not overnight.
Not perfectly.
But enough that I could no longer pretend I didn’t see it.
And once you see it, it becomes difficult to unsee.
Some people will grow with you.
Some people will celebrate your healing.
Some people will become even closer because of it.
But others will miss the version of you that asked for less.
The version of you that tolerated more.
The version of you that made life easier for them at your own expense.
That realization broke my heart.
Because love was real.
The memories were real.
The effort was real.
But healing kept bringing me back to the same truth.
Not everyone misses you.
Sometimes they miss the access they had to the version of you who abandoned yourself.
And those are not the same thing.
— Tawnia Lives ©