“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   

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 miserable when we label them that way. The merry moments are only that way because we decided that they were merry.  This morning I was reflecting on past Decembers and the changes that have occurred in the last few years.  There have been so many.  For one, there were people in my life last year that are gone this year.  Three years ago 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 or that they had said and done things to let him know how much he was loved while he was there.  Last year it is my husbands father and two years ago, it was my step-mother. She lived to be 85-years old.  This morning I was reflecting on how she did not spend the holidays with us that last year before she passed.  There were many reasons, but mainly our collective somber mood and the weather.  Little did I know that we would not have another opportunity.

“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

While there has been significant losses, at the same time there has been significant gain.  I am not the same person I was last year or the year before. I’ve been tested by trials and as they say, “The tree most pruned bears the best fruit.”  Two years this time of year, there was a fear and hopelessness that has now been replaced by faith and expectation. Last year thing got better.

This year, I have experienced a transformation that is still going on. Life is exciting! My dreams are coming true!  I see the world differently because I am learning to see the world differently.  Some of the same things are there, but I’ve changed the way I look at the word.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

2015 is going to be the best yet. I’ve been cleaning house the past two years. Some relationships have changed. Now, I have new relationships, new opportunities, and a new sense of valuing life’s little things, like my two newest grand-babies.  Sometimes when trying to get the BIG things, we miss out on the little things right before us. I am better, mainly because I chose to be better. I’m learning so many new things about the brain and how to change reality. 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.  I sure plan to!

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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