Have you ever heard the expression, “If you love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be”?
Well, if you balled up that expression and threw it in a song, you would get Kacey Musgrave’s “Space Cowboy.”
This ballad really is beautiful, but I think it’s also a huge reality check for us all.
“Sunsets fade, and love does too. Yeah, we had our day in the sun.
When a horse wants to run, there ain’t no sense in closing the gate.”
It’s hard to give something up. So damn hard. Especially when it is something you held so close, for so long. Sometimes though, you just have to wave your white flag.
There comes a point where the “low” outweighs the “high.” I mean, why hold on to something that is not working anymore? It doesn’t mean you don’t want it to work, but you have to come to the reality that grasping too tightly to someone will end up suffocating them, instead of keeping them with you. Holding them for too long, will only leave resentment. Don’t let that drain you.
“You can have your space, cowboy. I ain’t gonna fence you in.
Go on ride away, in your Silverado. Guess I’ll see you around again.
I know my place, and it ain’t with you.”
Musgraves teaches a lesson that maybe we all need to remember. You have to surrender. Even if you love them, even if you have tried everything to make it work, you must acknowledge that it is time…
Holding on isn’t helping them and definitely not you. Keep those good memories, there is nothing wrong with that, but like she sings, “When a horse wants to run, there ain’t no sense in closing the gate.”
Let them go. Give them their space. Give yourself some space. And really… if things are meant to be, they will be.
Class adjourned.