7 people we’ll have to part ways with one day

Losses in our life are inevitable — the whole question is how we will be able to survive and comprehend them. Here are a few types of loss that all of us face sooner or later.

1. A friend who turned out to be unreliable

Each of us has experienced this at least once, and someone more than once. A friend with whom we could laugh or cry together, work side by side, and yet somewhere deep down, purely intuitively, we felt that he was not entirely on our side.

He could be a very good person. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt us. And yet he did it.

So it was with Helen and me 15 years ago. Once she came to me with a friend whom I saw for the first time. And that’s when my little son had a typical childhood tantrum. Oddly enough, I was overjoyed. The fact is that in early childhood he was seriously ill, was literally on the verge of death. He didn’t have the energy for tantrums, which are completely normal for a small child. And the fact that the tantrum happened, in my eyes, was evidence that the baby was on the mend. He blushed, squealed, stamped his feet — a living, healthy child!

I grabbed him in my arms and out of the corner of my ear I heard the whisper of a friend Helen: she asked how old my son was. In the mirror, I saw Helen, whispering “Two years” back, roll her eyes and shake her head. It was terrible. She judged and judged without showing the slightest empathy. Then I told her this, she apologized, I accepted her apology … But I knew that there was no return to the previous relationship. It was just one lesson in a series that taught me how to choose who I can safely let into my life. I’ve learned the lesson.

2. The friend we didn’t appreciate

Sarah and I met in college and became fast friends. I thought it was a friendship for life. But after college, our paths diverged. I went to New York to build a career. Sarah went home and got married and became a mother much earlier than me.

As the years went by, it seemed like we had less and less in common. I distanced myself from her, stopped answering her calls. I was too young to understand that old friends are the ones who can remind us of who we once were. It didn’t dawn on me then that none of our successes, no progress cancel our closeness with those who remember us at the start and help us see what path we have traveled. I did not yet know that there are more important things in friendship than the similarity of life paths. The same career growth, life in the neighborhood, the same school that our children go to — this is not the main thing. Our soul connection with Sarah was much more important.

And I missed her. How I regret it!

3. The person we can’t let into our lives

Close your eyes for a minute and imagine it. There is no need to say his name out loud. Perhaps you are married. Or he is married. Or both of you are not free. In your fantasies, you sometimes picture to yourself what life could be like with him. However, in reality, they are not ready to destroy their well-being for his sake. When your eyes meet, you both understand.

Sometimes you think: what is so terrible if we allow ourselves something more? But you know the answer and keep your distance. Let go of this fantasy. It won’t last long. Now open your eyes and think about how lucky you are.

4. Loss you didn’t expect

As the Buddha said, life is suffering. To love is to lose. The natural order of things is that we lose our parents, as a rule, when we ourselves are already adults. But this is not always the case. I was very young when my father died in a car accident. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him. And he could not see how I turned from a difficult teenager into a completely reasonable woman. I know he was worried about me, and I always remember that. However, his death changed me, helped me choose the right path. I lived so that he could be proud of me.

These sudden losses, traumas remain with us, become part of our being. Any sound or smell can instantly bring us back to that terrible day. Our vulnerability hasn’t gone away, and it’s so beautiful, so human.

5. Loss, which is getting closer and closer

When my mother died, I was already a mother myself. Her dying was slow, we understood what was coming. But that didn’t make the loss any easier. This is death, stretched out in time, we foresee it in advance and imagine life without this person. We get used to living with this sorrow. We are forced to live feeling helpless. It’s the same vulnerability, beautiful and human.

6. Our therapist, teacher, guru we no longer need

There are relationships that have an expiration date, or at least they should. Our relationship with a psychotherapist (teacher, guru) has a very specific task — they should help us grow, and when this happens, the relationship should end. In some cases, this close connection with the person who has done so much for us can develop into something else, such as friendship. Relations with a therapist or teacher are initially unequal, new relationships will (if at all) be built on equality.

7. The person we wanted to be

As a child, I dreamed of becoming an actress. I thought that I would live in New York, in a skyscraper, with my husband and five, maybe six children, that I would not count money. Maybe I’ll even have my own plane. And so I grew up. I prefer to live outside the city. I got married, but I only have one child. My husband and I work hard to make ends meet.

This life — rich, imperfect, complex, satisfying — I built myself. I like her. But in order to build it, I had to part with my fantasies gleaned from glossy magazines. Let go of the far-fetched notions of who I am.

To live a full life, we will have to lose the version of ourselves that we fantasized about ourselves, discard it, because we no longer need it. And replace it with another — our own.

About the Author: Dani Shapiro is a writer, screenwriter, and non-fiction author.