LET THEM GO (A Homespun Thesis by "Madea")

“This is what I learned in all of my years on this earth. If somebody wants to walk out of your life… Let them go. Especially if you know you have done everything you can. You’ve been the best man or woman you can be and they still want to go, let ‘em go. Whatever they’re running after, they’ll see what they had in a minute, but by then it will be too late. Half of these people you’re crying about, you’re worrying about, two or three years from now, you won’t even remember their last name. How many times you’ve seen folks say, ‘What the **** was I thinking? What was wrong with me? I must have been lonely as **** to hook up with you.’

Let folks go, son. Some come for a lifetime. Some come for a season. You got to know which is which. And you gonna always mess up when you mix them season of people up with lifetime expectations. You got people who have gotten married to people they were only supposed to be with for a season. They got married to people they were only supposed to be with for a season and they wonder why they have so much hell in their life. That was a person who was supposed to teach you one thing. You didn’t know it so you just fell in love and now you wonder why you don’t have peace nowhere you go.

No, no. Listen. I put everybody that comes into my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. The wind blows, they’re over here. It blows the other way, they’re over there. They’re unstable. Seasons change. They wither and die. They’re gone. That’s alright. Most people in the world are like that. They’re just there to take from the tree. They aren’t going to do anything but take and give shade every now and then. That’s all they can do. Don’t get mad at people like that. That’s who they are. They were put on the earth to be a leaf. Some people are like a branch on the tree. You gotta be careful of those branches too. They’ll fool you. They make you think they’re a good friend and they’re real strong, but you step out there on them, and they break and they leave you high and dry.

But if you find you two or three people in your life just like the roots at the bottom of that tree, you are blessed ‘cause them the kind of people that ain’t going nowhere. They ain’t worried about being seen. Don’t nobody have to know they know you. Don’t have to know what they’re doing for you. But if those roots weren’t there, that tree couldn’t live. A tree can have a hundred million branches, but there’s only a few roots down at the bottom. I’m telling you son, when you get some roots, hang onto them. But the rest of them, let it go. Let folks go.

Nobody said it will be easy, but it gets easier when you learn how to love yourself. When you get to the point in your life where you look at people and you go, ‘Okay, wait a minute. You or me. You will make a decision.’ I’ve never in my life told nobody, ‘Don’t bother me. Don’t talk to me.’ But what I do, I say, ‘Look. This thing you’re doing right here. That’s gonna cause a problem. You gotta fix that. Cause if we’re gonna be friends, we gonna be cool, you’re gonna fix that. And if you don’t, we’re gonna have an issue.’ If you see somebody fix it, or even trying to fix it that’s somebody that cares. Keep them people around. That’s a leaf that’s trying to grow up and be something else. You understand?

But if you tell somebody ‘what you doing is hurting me, you need to stop,’ but they keep doing it, they don’t care. Move on. Let them go. No matter how much it hurt, let them go. And it will get easier. Every day it will get easier and easier, you just gotta make it through. You need to learn to be by yourself. People have to learn how to be alone. I don’t understand all these people who pray, ‘Lord, where is my man? Lord, where is my woman?’ That is crazier as ****. If you don’t know how to be by yourself, what you gonna do with somebody else? Stop praying about it. Shut up and wait. Go work on you. ****, that’s what that time is for to get yourself together. I’d rather be in the corner by myself with a puppet and a goldfish, and be happy than to be sitting around with somebody in my house, and I’m wondering ‘what the **** they there for?’

You would be surprised at what people put up with just to have somebody to say they love them. I don’t understand it. I can’t live in dysfunction. I’m sorry. I’ve done come through too much hell and high water to let you come up in my adult life when I’m supposed to be at peace and give me all kind of hell. Only two places on this earth you gonna have peace. The grave and your house. And if you can’t wake up in your house and have peace, something’s wrong. I’m sorry.”

(“Madea” – Tyler Perry)