Staying through the storm

In this deeply personal reflection, Sumaa Tekur finds herself in the charged stillness that follows goodbyes. In that in-between space, she confronts what endings demand of us, and explores how letting go is less about loss and more about treating oneself with grace

Last month, I ended a friendship that had lasted decades. It wasn’t dramatic; there was no shouting or blame-placing. I quietly withdrew, making myself unavailable for the persistent testing of my boundaries and the digs at my life choices, all wrapped neatly in the ribbon of humour — the laugh-out-loud variety. When this “friend” was making jokes at the expense of my life, the envy was silent, but the giggles in the room were loud. I heard the whoosh sound of her escaping her own mind.

She called it “closeness”, but they were knives hidden in the flower bouquet. Years ago, I had relegated this friendship to my outer circle of acquaintances. But here she was again, making use of the slightest opening to access my energy and to insist she belonged. That day, I closed the door on that chapter. I felt a curious mix of sadness and relief.

What happened next revealed even more of her state of mind. She called and texted with the persistence of a mountain goat. Her heart knew that she had crossed the line of dignity a long time ago, but she wanted to drag me back into her theatre. She wanted to force me to take a seat and watch her stage performance. But I went silent. Shy of barging in through my front door, she tried every trick — prodding, poking, insulting my intelligence — through the various forms that digital communication today would allow. My silence rendered them all useless.

Curiously, this wasn’t the only ending of 2025. Two other long friendships, one spanning over three decades (unable to deal with the closure, he barged in through my front door, and I still shudder at the thought), the other four decades old (a childhood friendship), fell away with some grating noise. I began to notice a pattern: 2025 was the year of letting go. The leaves had to fall before anything new could grow.

Letting go with grace

Goodbyes are inevitable. People leave. Situations change. Life blooms in many other ways. But the space when one person has left, and another hasn’t yet entered, is most revealing of our mental and emotional state. It answers the most crucial question: How healthy are you, really? This liminal space can also be brutally unforgiving in its revelations of our state of mind and the grace and dignity with which we flow through life. It asks: Are you ready to let go with grace, and are you willing to accept something new?

The most beautiful and difficult thing about letting go is that it’s never a single act. It’s beautiful because life hands you not one but many chances to let go. The difficulty is in surrendering to the waves that hit at the most inopportune times, trusting that there is an all’s-well-that-ends-well to this.

I still remember sitting in my balcony one evening, giving company to the mango tree and the parrots that came to perch on its broad, sinewy branches. The air was thick with the scent of impending rain. My mind was pulled to all the friendships and other types of relationships that ended in the year. The memory strands braided into the past with every goodbye of my emotional life. The evening painted itself in the colours of melancholy, not in a ruminative way, but to release parts of the emotions that don’t serve me anymore.

A longing for closure

Grief often comes in waves. Unexpectedly. Sometimes months after a goodbye, sometimes years. And yet, this is the spiritual work of love: sitting with the emptiness, learning to breathe through it, discovering myself in the pause. Relationship endings are rarely about the other person. They are mirrors, showing us our own limits, patterns and our unspoken needs. After the friend I pulled away from texted again, I noticed mild irritation rising in me. I wanted the chapter to be over. I realised that my longing for closure had nothing to do with her — it had everything to do with me. I didn’t need her words to feel whole. So, I employed the classic closure technique — one that rarely fails — ‘write the letter that you never send’. I wrote everything I wished I had said, read it aloud and then tore up the paper into bits. In that act, I found my own closure.

Focus on joy

When I began writing my book, I thought it would be a journal of breakups, especially romantic relationships. But as I worked through my own endings, I realised that every ending — whether the relationship was contained as romantic or not — gave me yet another opportunity to meet myself all over again, this time in a deeper, more intimate way. But insights about ending something are hard to come by. We are socially conditioned to focus on joy. We read so much about how to start a relationship, how to grow it and how to save it. But there is so little said about the processing of an end that happens in private, deep within the mind and psyche. Where, then, do we learn from?

Imperfect love

In searching for such guidance, I turned to Indian mythology, our evergreen and ever-generous source of wisdom for all of life’s truths. When I dipped into this resource, I discovered stories full of imperfect love, stories where endings were not failures but transformations.

Dhruva’s tale, for instance, of phenomenal spiritual growth that came from parental neglect, is more telling of the insight that no type of relationship is immune from the pull of dark human emotions — envy, greed, manipulation, desire and a combination of these and more. Dhruva grieved the loss of paternal love, but he transmuted that loss into self-growth. The Dhruva-Tare, named after him, is both the unwavering north star guiding those who are lost, and it is also a shining reminder in the sky that we are more than a sum of all our relationships.

I was initially drawn to Nala and Damayanti’s fairytale, complete with swans, love letters and a meet-cute romance that filled the mind and soul in an idealistic way. But their journey post-marriage was full of trials and separation. When they reunited, life had meaning because of their individual journeys, not despite them.

It’s the same for the story of Krishna and Sudama’s enduring friendship. It tells us that bonds can evolve, shift, and survive in unexpected ways. Each story that I read and chose to include in the book felt like a mirror to my own experiences in the year of letting go, each offering a chance for growth.

Tangled patterns

Some relationships leave us tangled in intense patterns. Cognition alone is insufficient to make sense of the ‘what’ and ‘why’. These are typically what many call karmic connections. I once had an intense romance that lasted seven years. It was more off than on, but no matter how many unsent letters I wrote and burnt to ashes, the feelings would rise like a phoenix taking charge of my entire being. I was simply unable to let go. For the first time, I understood what wise elders meant when they said, “When the time is right, it will happen.”

Divine timing is a theme that Indian mythology shows through its powerful stories. Sita’s wait. Karna’s justice. Nandi’s patience. Urmila’s sacrifice. All of these are odes to divine timing. I often joke with friends at times that I am keeping busy while waiting for the big twist in my tale. But secretly, I also know that what I keep busy with is as essential to my journey as the twist when it does arrive. This is the power of divine timing.

Courage to grow

Relationships that end — abruptly, smoothly or in whatever way — are not failures. Divorce is not failure. An affair gone wrong is not a failure. A separation is not failure. Each one is a mirror. Each ending is asking us these questions. How do you attach to people? Is it a healthy attachment style? Do you cling, push or pull? Where is the limit to your dignity?

The ability to honestly answer this for ourselves — not to another but to ourselves — reveals our courage to grow. Here’s where we see where love expands into self-preservation, with or without another’s presence.
Endings, then, are not just closures — they are openings. They give us space to reflect, to grieve and to meet ourselves fully. They allow us to reimagine who we are, how we love, and how we move forward. Each of us has to learn to say goodbye without waiting for perfection, where we find strength in the spaces left behind, and finally discover that the heart can grow even in loss.

That’s when a goodbye turns to a hello. To the self.

The author writes about spirituality, women’s lives and the joy of solo living. Her latest book, ‘Goodbye, I love(d) you!’ was recently published by Hay House Publishing.