"It's everything you wanted, It's everything you don't. It's one door swinging open and one door swinging closed. Some prayers find an answer, some prayers never know. Holding on and Letting go."
-Ross Copperman, Holding On and Letting Go
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There are songs in this life that touch me. That move me to moments of clarity and make me feel as though someone out there understands. This one has been on repeat for the last month. I talk often about how you must live to be able to write. You must recognize that it is this amazing world around us that reminds us how great a story can be. Life inspires us to dream beyond the realities we see every day. It reminds us that in the pages of a book great love can be found, great pain can be survived and great things can happen to those who feel they are lost among the wreckage. Words found on clean crisp pages tell us to remember that evil can be defeated, that cancer can be beaten before it begins, that loss can bring us to a place where we appreciate all that we have.Losing options in life is not something we always think of. We are built to be hopeful, to look to the good things and to overcome the dark times. Occasionally we give in, we let the sadness creep up our bodies and steal a little of the sunlight. I strive everyday to not let darkness cloud my mind, my life or my heart. I know that losing options is inevitable in life. We often lose them because we choose to, we choose another path, we walk in a different direction and never look back. This past December I lost an option. We chose to take a direction that will forever remove the possibility of holding a mini me or a mini version of my husband. We did not do this blindly or out of the blue. Our window was rapidly sliding closed and I know that God stood with me at every discussion, during the surgery, after it, and as I sit here. I am discovering, as my recovery progresses, that life is worth even more than I originally knew. Faith flows through me and yet I let the hard time cloud my mind, each day I work to rise above it. My recovery is painful, but less than some; it is long, but shorter than others; it is a time where I am understanding what it all means; it is a process. We often hold on to things that really should be released. I am still clinging to the things I will never get to experience...I know this. Each day I am forcing myself to let go, bit by bit, chunk by chunk and to remember that Holding on and Letting Go is a part of life. We don't always get what we ask for, but that doesn't mean we are not exactly where we are supposed to be, doing exactly what we are supposed to do and learning the lesson meant just for us. We must have faith that as we let go we are giving our problems, our issues and our troubles to our Faith. We are letting it go, trusting our life will be guided by a loving God.
I am so blessed. Today I am writing again. Words that hopefully will help someone else, will bring them some sort of comfort, happiness or compassion. I don't know if it will be successful, but the fact that I am sitting here, that I am thinking about life, talking to family, loving my dog and my husband... well it means that sometimes we just have to wade through what we let go and recognize the things we get to hold onto, that we get to enjoy. Don't ever let a supposed unanswered prayer take you down a dark road. Because you are where you need to be, sometimes you just need to recognize that the options in front of you may be foreign but they are yours and yours alone. Climb out of the dark, find the light and see that life gives you so many options that even when you think they are gone another one will slide into place..... and that sometimes, every so often we are blessed to be able to recognize how amazing this life is and it is worth inspiring each and every one of us to be better, to use our talents, to discover new ones and to live.
