Whether your current moment is merry or miserable, you must let go of it if you are to move on to the next.   The miserable moments are only that when we label them that way. The merry moments are only that way because we decided that they were.  This morning I was reflecting on last December and the changes that have occurred since last year this time.  There have been so many.  For one, there were people in my life last year that are gone this year.  Last year at this time, we were mourning my nephew’s tragic and untimely demise at age 32.  Everyone was wishing that they’d spent more time with him and said and done things to let him know how much he was loved.  This year it is my step-mother who passed in July. She lived to be 85-years old.  This morning I was reflecting on how she did not spend the holidays with us last year.  There were many reasons, but mainly our collective somber mood and the weather.  Little did I know that we would not have another opportunity.

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis

While there has been significant loss, at the same time there has been significant gain.  I am not the same person I was last year. Last year this time there was a fear and hopelessness that has now been replaced by faith and expectation.  I have new relationships, new opportunities, and a new sense of valuing life’s little moments.  I am better, mainly because I chose to be better.  I know from my more than a half century of living that we must seize every moment.  We don’t love, laugh, and enrich the world in the past or the present, we do it ONLY in the current moment.  So seize it.

“It’s not life’s big planned events that make the big difference, it is the simple, intimate, and sometimes spontaneous things we do for each other.” Barbara Talley

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.
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