This afternoon my daughter and I went for a long drive. It’s mid October and the weather was absolutely beautiful so I didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. I decided to take her cruising through the old neighbourhood. I suppose you could call it a drive down memory lane.
We used to live in an old character home. The bottom half of the exterior was butter-cream and the top half was covered in brick-red cedar shingles. We took good care of the property including the grape vines that enclosed the back yard and the raspberry bushes that snuggled up against the back shed. I used to spend hours on end digging and planting and pulling up weeds. In fact I spent more time outside than I ever did in. The yard was small, but we’d often throw a blanket down on the grass, and have a picnic or toss a ball with the kids.
It’s since been painted bright yellow, the front yard is covered with junk, and the entire place is over grown with weeds.
It’s the kind of yard you look at and say, “What happened here?!” under your breath.
But the thing is that it’s not my home any more, and as difficult as it might be sometimes, I have to let go. I have to accept the fact that someone else is sitting on my front steps and baking bread in my kitchen.
Letting go can be one of the most difficult steps that we take in our lives. Letting go of a house is fairly easy, but letting go of a job or a friendship? That’s an incredible challenge.
A few years ago, I got to wondering “Is there something wrong with me? Why do I have broken friendships? Is this common?”
As the days passed by, I started to notice that it wasn’t just me. We live in a broken world in which we lose things that we desperately want to hang on to.
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