Let The River Bend

There’s a saying in my language:

You can’t make a meandering river run straight

It means: Don’t waste your time trying to change the mind of someone who doesn’t want to.

Don’t burn yourself out trying to reshape something that can’t even imagine being different.
Don’t try to straighten what refuses to be straight.

It’s not selfish.
It’s self‑respect.

It’s the kind of clarity that arrives after you’ve offered too much, for too long—
to something that was never ready to receive it.

You kept showing up.
Kept offering something clearer, softer, kinder—
hoping that if you just got it right, they’d finally meet you there.
You explained the same truth again,
thinking this time it might land differently.

You gave patience the shape of loyalty.
They gave resistance the shape of permanence.

And somewhere between trying to help and trying to hold on,
you lost track of what you were actually doing.

You weren’t helping.
You were dragging.
Dragging the conversation.
Dragging the hope.
Dragging the version of them that only existed in your imagination.
Dragging the timeline you kept resetting.

Here’s the hard part:

They didn’t want to change.
Not really.

You saw potential.
But potential without action is just a story you keep telling yourself—
one that keeps you anchored to a version of them that never arrives.
You can’t keep holding on to what it could be
when everything shows you it won’t.

There’s a cost to confusing empathy with endurance.
There’s a weight to staying invested in people, roles, or systems
that only feel worthwhile once they change.

And when that day doesn’t come, you’re not just tired.
You’re disappointed that you spent so long holding on—
waiting for change that never came.

But that disappointment is proof you cared.
You believed in the possibility of better.
And that belief isn’t something to regret—
it means your care was real.

Still, eventually, you have to stop giving your energy to something
that confuses resistance for identity.
You drew the line late,
but you still drew it.
And you walked away.

Letting go isn’t cold.
It’s clarity.

It’s how you reclaim the energy you’ve been spending on something
that never had the desire—
or even the capacity—
to meet you halfway.

This isn’t just about one kind of relationship.
It shows up everywhere—
lovers who keep promising they’ll change,
but keep showing you they won’t.
Jobs that keep dangling something better
but never quite deliver.
Friendships you can’t justify but still maintain,
because history keeps pretending to be closeness.

The pattern doesn’t care where it lands—
only that you stay.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do
is step away from a pattern that keeps dressing itself up as connection.

Because the river isn’t listening.
It’s moving.

And it’s not yours to redirect.

Let it bend.
Let it move the way it’s decided to.
It’s not your job to change the current—
just to choose where you stand.