The Beauty of Moving On

Moving on is one of the most beautiful acts of love we can perform. Every day, we move on from satisfactory test performances or successful interviews. We also move on from negative things such as a boring first date or memories of our awkward middle school selves (let's face it, there are no comfortable middle schoolers.) Moving on entails the transcendence of whatever pain, shame, embarrassment, frustration, anger, or sorrow we harbored and the transformation of such emotions into motivation for making new memories in our lives.

We move on because dwelling in the past makes us forget to live in the present.

Stage 1: Acknowledge and Honor the Past

Some things are, by nature, difficult to move on from––a toxic relationship, the last job that almost drained the life out of us, drifting apart from the ex-best friend...the list goes on. Just when we think we have left those episodes behind, we find our minds wandering back to the crevice where pieces of archived memory hide, and once again we are hit by a combination of both pain and nostalgia. The truth is we cannot simply shove our past into a box and ship it away.

Having recently lost someone dear to my heart, I too scrambled to find ways to move on. I cannot afford emotional detachment, because no matter how much it hurts every time when I think about her, the memories that we shared is my way of connecting with her. Choosing to forget the past by brute force is failing to recognize its role in our personal development. We cannot move on by detachment because we risk severing ourselves from that part of our identity.

Stage 2: Trust that Future Has More to Offer

For some people, moving on from the most wonderful moments of our lives is even more difficult. Our affinity for the status quo, especially when the status quo is beautiful and comfortable, can be attributed to an underlying fear that what’s to come cannot measure up to what has come. When we believe in our ability to create an even more extraordinary future, there is no longer the need to linger on the glorious past.

Final Stage: Finding A Sense of Closure

Recently, I graduated from high school and had to say goodbye to the small, close-knitted community of 80 classmates whom I’ve come to call good friends. We laughed together, cried together, struggled together, persevered together, experienced victory together, left our legacy together. Our journey for companionship and knowledge culminated in two mere hours of addresses, awards, and ceremonial festivities. Graduation almost felt anticlimactic. Two days later, I found myself struggling to come to terms with a simple fact that I am college bound.

After two months of traveling and solitude, I realized that just as every book needs some sort of notation to signal its end, I needed some sense of closure in order to move on from the four most formative years of my life. I met up with several classmates over lunch, and shared not only our favorite memories from high school but also our aspirations and trepidations for the next four years of our lives. It is thanks to them that I become inspired to write this article in an ultimate search for finality.

Reflecting on the past will always bring about gems of wisdom, but we cannot be ready to embrace the special moments when they come by unless you cast our gaze forward. Acknowledge and honor your past, trust that the future has more to offer, and find the closure you need in order to move on. This article is mine; what will yours be?