Sometimes You Just Need To Walk Away

I just watched Suburban Girl for the first time in several years. And just wow.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, this is a bio of the 2007 movie I found on Google since I thought it’d be better than my attempt. Haha.

“Publishing assistant Brett Eisenberg (Sarah Michelle Gellar) wants to be a big-time editor. However, she lacks self-confidence, a problem that isn’t helped by her new, overbearing boss. Brett soon enters into a relationship with Archie (Alec Baldwin), an older man who has plenty of his own issues, including alcoholism, diabetes and a difficult relationship with his daughter. Intent on helping Archie get past his problems, she turns to her dying father (James Naughton) for advice.”

It was crazy to watch now that I am the same age as Gellar’s character. I relate more to the overall plot.

Loving someone is hard. No matter who or how you love them. There comes a time where you know deep inside that it’s time to let them go no matter how much you love them. You can still love someone with everything in you, but have a gut feeling that it’s time to walk away from them. Spoiler alert: Gellar’s character does that at the end of the movie.

I think what makes me resonate with this movie so great is that it doesn’t end with the typical “happy ending” by being with that person who you love. The movie does end with Brett walking away from Archie knowing herself better than before she entered the relationship with Archie. Archie did help Brett gain confidence in herself, but given certain circumstances, he also held her back from her true potential. You see Brett accepts things because of her love for Archie, but in the end, she is strong enough to let go of him. When walking away from him, she can be even more confident than she was when she was in a relationship with Archie (where she was at her peak of confidence).

The older I get the more I come to accept that I have to move on no matter how much I love someone or how much they may love me. I need to choose me over being in a relationship that does more harm than good. This means any kind of relationship (not just romantically).

Choose you.

When you get to where you are having that gut feeling to let go of someone, it is a hard moment. It’s like you are deciding to let a part of yourself go, and in ways you are. That person got a special part of you, so let them go with grace because at least for a moment they saw a part of you that no one else did or probably ever will.

I could never regret loving someone so intensely.

I saw something in them that was worth loving and giving my heart to, so I am not going to pretend they are trash just because it makes it easier for me to walk away from them. I will embrace what they gave me that was good and walk away. Though I am walking away, I will love them for the rest of my life. I also can’t let me loving them stop me from loving others and more importantly loving myself.

I first watched Suburban Girl when I was maybe fifteen if that. Now watching it being twenty-three and having had more complex relationships, both romantically and platonically, it hits different. I remember being so upset when the movie ended with the girl walking away from the guy. Watching it now, I realize that’s what she needed to do for herself and him.

Sometimes the hardest and most painful decisions are some of the necessary ones for everyone affected.