No one wants to give-up on someone they love, but sometimes we are forced to make hard decisions by extraordinary suffering. It's easy to judge, or say, "never-give-up," until you have been there. Eventually, you begin to realize that life is too short and your powers to teach, influence or heal are limited. You finally accept that their emptiness, pain, and dysfunction requires more than you have to give. You can't hand your whole life and soul over to someone who doesn't even care about their own. You can only hold-the-line for someone hell-bent on self-destruction for so long, but when you start getting rope burns on your hands, you have to let go. You also must be careful fighting someone else's demons — it may awaken your own! Some of the people we adore most — like the moth to the flame — are going to destroy themselves. Their attraction to their inevitable undoing is heartbreaking to watch, and something you will never understand. As much as you love someone, you can't make their decisions or live their life for them. They must make the hard decisions all on their own. In many cases, the disaster is already in play; it's in motion because of their past actions, and now the consequences are coming, and there is nothing you can do about it. It hurts to watch. It is awful. Letting go is an excruciating heartbreak; mourning the death of what once was. If you did let someone go, and you still have guilt because of it, it's time to forgive yourself and begin to heal. If it is time to let someone go, for their sake, or for yours, then this may be your confirmation.
