The Staying Philosophy

In one particular episode of Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell, who plays the show’s leading lady (um, Veronica) says something that I always believed to be quite poignant. Sitting in her bedroom, she turns to her sheriff dad, Keith, and says: “The hero is the one that stays.”

This particular quote became my life motto for most of my college life. But almost six years have passed since CW’s cancellation of the show and I find myself questioning the worth I once placed in (what I’d like to call) the staying philosophy.

At 27, I’m starting to believe that it’s unhealthy to take leaving against one another.

Because leaving does not always mean betrayal. And I think that, sometimes, we’re not particularly afraid of losing people. What we’re really afraid of is having to learn to do life without them. Because, ultimately, we are creatures  of habit and comfort.

One day not far from today, that just might be our demise.

Because the world is changing and we are changing, all the time, forever and ever. And, sometimes, by holding on too hard, we lose.

And loss can be ugly, beautiful, scary or all of the above but I have found that it is, more than anything, necessary.

When we say things like ‘people don’t change,’ it drives scientists crazy. Because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy, matter, it’s always changing. Morphing, merging, growing, dying. It’s the way people try not to change that’s unnatural. The way we cling to the things that were, instead of letting them be the way they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of making new ones. The way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication, that anything in this lifetime is perfect. Change is constant. The way we experience change, that’s up to us. It can feel like death, or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment, we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again. (Grey’s Anatomy)

So when people leave, I’ve learned the secret: let them. Because, most of the time, they have to.

Let them walk away and go places. Let them have adventures in the wild without you. Let them travel the world and explore life beyond a horizon that you exist in. And know, deep down, that heroes aren’t qualified by their capacity to stay but by their decision to return.

All great people leave.

And, yes. One day, a great person just might leave you.

But our lives are made of revolving doors and for every person who leaves, a new person enters. Not as a replacement but as a completely new character in the ever-evolving story of your life.

When you leave, you begin to understand the worth of what you walked away from. You discover that walking out is not always equivalent to closing doors. Sometimes it means leaving them half-open for the journey back. It is not a virtue possessed by the easily contented. It has always been the beaten down path of the brave.

One fine day, it will be your turn. You will leave homes, cities and countries to pursue grander ambitions. You will leave friends, lovers and possibilities for the chance to roam the world and make deeper connections. You will defy your fear of change, hold your head high and do what you once thought was unthinkable: walk away. And it will be scary. At first. But what I hope you’ll find in the end is that in leaving, you don’t just find love, adventure or freedom. More than anything, you find you.

Maybe the truth is that Veronica was wrong all along. It’s the coward who is the one that stays.

I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die.  The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way.  I will change into a wife to love a man, into a mother to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near dear friends, keep changing with my husband, getting our love renewed so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change.  Everybody has to change, or they expire.  Everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.  I want to keep my sould fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die.  I want to recognize and cherish and preserve the things and people in my life that I have kept coming back to no matter how far I have gone.  I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not read the same page recurrently.  And my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play.  My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around dear friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God.  We get one story, you and I, and one story alone.  God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution.  It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go.  It might be time to change, to shine out.  I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit.  It is a beautiful word, isn't it?  So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be.  And you will not be alone.  You have never been alone.  Don't worry.  Everything will still be here when you get back.  It is you who will have changed.