For me, the hardest goodbyes are the ones that I plan.

If I know they’re leaving or I anticipate their life will come to an end soon, and then they do, that is when it hurts the most. When death finally settles in after seeing it for quite some time, that is when it kills me. Death is the worst goodbye that anyone can agree with, but why? Is it the uncertainty of where they go or if you’ll ever see them again? Is it knowing how much pain they were in and that death was the only relief?

I think the real reason is more selfish than that. I think it’s because you know you got the short end of the stick. You have to stay behind in the place that causes so much pain; you are the one who is left while they move on.

I bring up death because my mom died two years ago. Technically, she was my grandmother, but my mother in every sense of the word. I didn’t really process it, and a big part of me didn’t want to. I knew that it would affect me, but I didn’t realize in what ways or for how long.

Being in a relationship with someone you choose to be with will often stir up any fears of abandonment you might have, even if you were in the perfect relationship. If the people who are designed to stay with you leave, why would someone who owes you nothing stay? That was the worry for me. With my grandma abandoning me by dying, my biological mother abandoning me for drugs, and my biological father not even showing up, there are a lot of reasons why I have relationship anxiety.

A year after my grandma’s death was when I met him. I was able to separate my anxiety from the reality of our relationship, but it took time and a lot of hope. One year in, and I still fear losing him, him leaving me, or something going terribly wrong. I’ve realized that just because I’m anxious doesn’t mean we aren’t meant to be together, just because something triggered me doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be with him. All I can do is trust him, and trusting people is hard when you’ve been let down by the most important people in your life. When you struggle with trust, you have to allow yourself time to see that they are trustworthy. Letting him show me that I can trust him and allowing myself to be essential in the progression of our relationship.

My anxiety comes from a deep part of me that wants to avoid getting hurt by other people. But if I ended our relationship because of the what-ifs, I would have missed out on so much love and joy. As time goes on, it can become even scarier because you become more invested, but imagine how much deeper your love could become and how much richer your life can be. Falling in love has been the greatest experience in my life so far, no matter how terrifying it is, or how much anxiety I’ve had.

My fear of being hurt kept me from fully enjoying my relationship. Everyone gets hurt at some point, and everyone fears getting hurt again, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait for the other shoe to drop. You can have anxiety and you can worry, but you don’t have to be miserable. Fully enjoy your relationships even if the future is unknown. Let yourself like them, let yourself fall in love. As much as you want to protect yourself from heartache, don’t keep yourself from the happiness that only comes from being in love. 

“Men are that they might are joy” (2 Nephi 2:25, Book of Mormon).