Letting Go Loudly: A Love Story with No Villains
- Michele Renee
- Jul 20, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 22, 2025
🩷 Life, Letting Go, and Loving Out Loud 📅 Originally written July 2016
I spent nearly two decades in a relationship soaked in pride, correction, and quiet wars. It was easy to love when I was younger before pain and betrayal hardened the edges of my heart. Back then, I wasn’t afraid to give it all away. I believed in love with my whole chest.
But now, knowing what I know, feeling what I’ve felt, it's a miracle anytime someone says: “I still believe.” It's courage, not naivety, when a soul decides to try again, to love again.
Once, I found that kind of love again. It started gently, as a friendship with someone I once knew. Familiar laughter, familiar warmth. But this time, we had battle scars. We carried more truth and more hesitation.
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The relationship I held onto for so long? It was survival disguised as connection. Years spent trying to define ourselves individually while simultaneously trying to prove the other wrong. Our only real unity? The six months we trained together for a marathon.
Daily life became a scoreboard. A mental tally of what they did… or didn’t do. Until one day, I realized: it’s not a phase. We weren’t just misaligned. We were punishing each other.
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We forgot the essentials sharing, listening, caring. The real kind of sharing: the messy kind. The “I don’t even understand myself, but I want you to try with me anyway” kind. The kind of listening that isn’t waiting for a reply, but leaning in for connection.
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It’s about care unapologetic, proud, vulnerable care. But pride? Pride tells you to act like you don’t care. Pride says, “Make them work for it.” Pride is a liar.
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We all crave to be understood… but how can we receive what we refuse to give?
And when we don’t feel understood? That’s when I shut down. That’s when the walls go up. And soon, both people are behind their own walls, holding tightly to their pride instead of each other.
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In a good relationship, we must talk about the things. The big, messy, unclear, emotional things. I share sometimes not because I need fixing, but because I need to understand myself out loud. I need to know I’m being heard, not corrected. Loved, not analyzed.
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True listening? It’s not about control. It’s not prepping your next argument while the other is speaking. It’s letting go of the need to win.
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There’s no one person to blame. There are two people who stopped fighting for each other and started fighting each other.
And even when you don’t understand… if you try? That effort is everything. Because when pride walks in, love often walks out. And all you're left with is ego and echo.
Sometimes, we just need to be heard. Understood. Not judged. You’d never want someone you love to carry pain they feel like they can’t give voice to. But if you don’t ask? If you don’t listen? They will carry it alone and further away from you.
Eventually, you choose: stay and fight, or walk away.
Me? I walked away the moment I felt I wasn’t worth it anymore. When my needs weren’t a priority. When “later” became the answer to “I need you.”
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I no longer wanted someone to listen out of guilt or habit. I wanted to be heard because they wanted to understand. I wanted to feel like I was worth it.
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I didn’t want another excuse. I wanted accountability. I wanted someone to say, “I hurt you. I see that. I’m sorry.”
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But instead, I got excuses, redirections, and stories about why they needed more time. More growth. More space. “Later,” they said.
How could they know where I wanted to go, when they didn’t even take the time to ask where I currently stood?
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The hardest thing I’ve ever done? Letting go of belief. Letting go of a fantasy I worked so hard to keep alive.
We had been living separate lives long before I walked out. Different rooms. Different dreams. But I was the one who physically left, so I felt like the villain. Mean. Scared. Weak. Lost.
But nothing compares to losing yourself… trying to hold onto something that was never truly yours.
I spent years sick. Crying. Dying inside over someone who wouldn’t fight for me.
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So I let go of pride. I found my strength. I became someone new… but also someone I remembered. The innocent me. The real me.
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I needed peace. I needed friendship. I needed a love that felt like a safe home. And if it meant waiting? Then so be it. I was done compromising my spirit.
I reached a point where I knew I’d give everything I had for a connection that felt real. I wanted to feel another soul again. Not just in passing. But in presence.
Even if it wasn’t my “forever,” I knew this wasn’t it. I craved more.
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My moon, my man
So changeable and
Such a lovable lamb to me...
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~Feist
That song? That feeling? I’ve lived in that space half love, half loss, full ache.
STOP trying to win a fight by proving the other person wrong. If you love them friend, partner, family stop the scoreboard. Nobody wants to be around someone who constantly makes them feel “not enough.” Love isn’t about control. It’s about space, safety, and truth.
I need to be heard. To know that what I feel matters.
Not to be corrected. Not to be debated.
I need you to want to understand, even when it doesn’t make sense.
Because I’ll do the same for you.
When pride shows up in a disconnection it’s loud. But love? Love is quiet and consistent. And far more powerful.
Some people will never put down their pride. They will carry it like a trophy at the cost of everything good. But love? Real love is worth the messy, honest work. Especially when it’s for those who love us unconditionally. Like our children.
How can we ever understand one another, if all we’re doing is demanding to be understood?
I don’t remember the exact moment the realization hit me. Maybe sometime in July 2016, after another wave of personal storms. But I knew God was trying to get through to me.
He was sending reminders over and over nudging me to lay my ego down. Humble myself. Strip away the layers I didn’t need.
I remembered how much I loved to express myself, even as a little girl. I would dig through vintage shops, sewing and customizing clothes that felt like magic. I played with makeup like it was paint for the soul not to hide, but to enhance what I already was.
I was surrounded by strong, expressive women. And each time I dipped a brush in glitter or color, I felt like I was painting my power back on. That sparkle wasn’t just makeup—it was a reminder. That I’m still here. That I’m worthy. That I shine.
But the world? It doesn’t always know what to do with people who shine unapologetically. And when they don’t understand you, they criticize you.
And when they can’t dim you, they try to discredit you.
But no matter what anyone says about my selfies, my glitter, my loud laugh, or my love I am not for everyone. I am for the ones who see my soul and stay.
I share pieces of me so others know they’re not alone. I share my music, my images, my thoughts, and my glitter bombs because maybe… just maybe… someone out there needs to hear “me too.”
Even if it’s messy. Especially if it’s messy. Because that’s what makes it divine.
I will always try to do what it takes to remind myself:
I am worthy.
I am powerful.
And I am still here.
When I hurt, I disappear. That’s how my pride shows up. I withdraw and say, “I don’t need this.” But deep down? I just don’t want to be dismissed.
But in every disagreement with someone I love especially family I’m learning to let go. To soften. Because proving I’m right? It’s never worth the cost of someone I treasure.
Whether it’s with a partner, a child, or a grandparent…
Love without humility isn’t really love.
My grandmother is one of the most important people in my life.
She’s love in its rawest form. She’s selflessness personified. If she were dying in a desert, she would still crawl through the heat to find water not for herself, but for those she loves. And somehow, I’m one of those people.
From the time I was a little girl, she’s fought for me. Fiercely. Loudly. Unapologetically. And let me tell you we’ve butted heads more times than I can count. We are both warriors, stubborn and strong-willed, armed with generations of grit.
But her fight has always been for me even when it felt like it was against me.
We’re from different generations, yet we both want the same thing: to be heard, to be respected, to be known. We cry when we’re at odds sometimes privately, sometimes loud enough for God to hear. The days we’re disconnected feel like an eternity.
It all comes back to that damned thing again: PRIDE.
We clash sometimes because we speak different languages: hers from a time when pride was survival; mine from a heart that bleeds and blogs in full color. But when we finally understand each other? It’s beautiful.
The Queen of Swords She’s clear, wise, sharp, and finally sees through the fog of illusion. She has felt betrayal but refuses to live bitter. Her strength comes not from armor but from honesty and discernment. This card represents you now: choosing clarity, choosing peace, and never again silencing your voice for anyone.
When I was younger, I craved self-expression. I would play with makeup, not to cover up but to become. I’d dig through thrift shops, altering clothes until they looked and felt like magic. My grandma didn’t always get it my style, my sparkle but she let me be.
My other Grandma Darling house was also full of strong women, her, her mother, her daughters..my mom and my aunts all uniquely beautiful. When they would leave for work, for dates, for life, I’d sneak into their makeup. I’d open the compacts, the lipsticks, the palettes… not to hide, but to highlight.
It felt like art. Like armor. Like expression.
Every stroke of eyeliner, every swipe of glitter was a spell a declaration:
“I am here. I am mine. I am worthy.”
That spark inside me? It was nurtured in secret by women like my grandmothers who might not have said the words but gave the space.
Still, there were years me and my grandma Mira (paternal grandma) didn’t understand each other. We were both stubborn. Both proud. I held tightly to my truth, and she to hers. When we clashed, it wasn’t over petty things it was about identity, faith, belief, survival.
My dad, a partner, my daughter any of them could try to mediate, but this was between me and my grandma. The fire in us was ours alone.
Eventually, I had to let go of needing her to understand every part of me. I had to embrace the idea that she may never fully “get” all of me and that’s okay. Because I get me. And she loves me, even if our understanding isn’t always perfect.
My grandma has been my caretaker, my defender, my compass in storms. She’s held me when no one else would. She’s been there through heartbreaks I never had the words for.
She’s tough but sensitive. Unyielding but loving. Fierce but full of grace. She’s the kind of woman who will tell you the truth straight-up, even if you’re not ready. And she won’t let it go until you finally get it. 😅
It’s easy to get hurt when you’re both stubborn. Easy to build a wall instead of a bridge. But when you love someone deeply when you really love them being “right” doesn’t matter.
Because what’s the point of being right,
…if it means losing someone you love?
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