“The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it’s a world, or a relationship…Everything has its time. And everything ends.”
Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who.
Nothing rings truer when you realise you have grown out of your life. It may not be for better or worse, but just is. It means you’re moving forward. Most importantly, it means you’re growing.
Encountering this turning point for many people, and especially me, takes time. It takes re-evaluation and a bout of deep discomfort. It means constantly questioning yourself, your choices, and your surroundings. It may mean that the dynamics around you seem to crumble. You are out of tune with the sacred rhythm of your best friends. That your old reading nook in your childhood home seems too squatted. Or, perhaps, it means you are yearning for more, whatever that may be. You commonly find yourself on the edge of newfound independence, with your long-standing personal foundations ever-so-slightly cracking away. It’s because you’re growing.
Growth can be difficult to recognise and may even be met with denial. It means leaving behind an entire identity you have cultivated throughout the years. The delicacies of your personality, your habits, and your aspirations seem to wither away. Instead, they are replaced by new ones, new ideas, and new adventures. Change is undoubtedly scary. Even more so, it is painful. You are no longer the person you were, but not yet the person you are striving to be. You feel seemingly trapped in an endless limbo of shapeless journeys. Yet, we all must strive to move forward.
This may require a complete reset. For most, it means letting go. For if we remain grounded in the hopes of our past, we become enraged with a bitterness of unfilled potential. Everything, especially good things, must come to an end. It could mean saying goodbye to old friends, or that old school jumper we all wore too often. We must learn to move past the toxicity of being trapped in a place of safe, but suspended animation.
So, we must embrace the hardships of curating our own futures. We must take risks. There is no one else who is taking them for us. It will inevitably be unsupported by many, evidence that you are, indeed, changing and growing. It will, most definitely, lead to happier outcomes. Our roads to happiness may not be smooth and nor would they run parallel. Growing may be painful, it’s true. But we have a duty to ourselves to seek better, no matter how difficult the damage may be.