Sometimes when I have an idea for a post, it sits and mulls in my head a while before I can actually sit down and write it out. Such it has been with this subject: Letting Go.
I’ve always had issues with this myself, and I see it in others around me as well. We don’t let go easily… whether it’s of old habits, people, comforts, or just to ‘keeping things the same’. But life moves on and we can’t just keep holding on to the past, to the old, to the stuff that would clutter up our lives, our homes or our hearts even.
Past hurts are hart to let go of, sometimes. Yet if we don’t we end up harboring them, and they grow and fester like wounds and infect us with resentment and negative feelings. There are some things I still struggle with letting go of, those things that have hurt me or cut me the deepest, but for the most part I’m learning how to let go and move forward. There is healing in doing so. There is healing in Forgiveness as well. Forgiving doesn’t mean, necessarily continuing to let the person or thing into your life, but it’s letting go, accepting what is done is done and forgiving them and yourself for things.
Things don’t always go the way we hope, or the way we plan and harboring resentments and/or guilt, or sadness only makes us ill inside, emotionally. The heart aches neverending in the places where these things hold on, like scars that heal over red and sore, never fading in time. They can’t until Forgiveness like a salve heals them and turns the scar into a faded memory… thinning over time, and the memory of pain fades with it.
I have a few friends who have a struggle with people letting go. These people have had problems with people from the past continually popping back into their life. It’s like all they have to do is ‘think’ of a person from the past and boom, they show up, or contact yet again, and not always is it welcome or wanted. I don’t understand why people have such a hard time moving past things, moving past relationships, especially when there is damage done that even though there can be forgiveness, there is no going back, and sometimes it’s not even possible to start anything new, or start over. It’s just best let go, and live and let live.
I have never been one to hold on to things like that. I believe that people come and go as they are meant to in our lives and we learn from our mistakes and as regrettable as they are there is no fix in carrying on things that are done and gone. All we can do is forgive and move on in our own lives and try to live in a way to find peace or bring peace to others. Carrying hate, regret, revenge or grudges only poisons us and makes us mean ugly people.
I try never to hate anyone, though I would be a hypocrite to say that I never have. I have had and known a few people that I can honestly say I’ve hated. There have only been about three total, that come to mind and one only for certain but that was a very evil person. This man was evil and set out to harm others on purpose because their pain brought him pleasure, and I am not only talking emotional hurt… he was evil in more ways than one, but I still let it go, and moved on. I can’t say I forgave, but I have managed to move past it all despite that, and it only crosses my mind occasionally… and only whenever someone asks that question ‘have you ever hated anyone?’
Letting go of emotions is harder. Emotional pain I think is far worse than anything physical. There are things that still hurt me emotionally, the scar still raw, that even with forgiveness, can still hit me with such harsh pain it doubles me over. Yet I am trying and refuse to give up. Grief is one of those emotions that once it gets its hold on you, it’s very very hard to let it go, but if you don’t/ can’t it can be damaging, crippling in so many ways. Heartbreak is another such crippling emotion. Learning to trust anyone again after such hurts can be so very hard… but I’m determined to live a happier life and get back to the Me I lost somewhere before Life kicked the shit out of me.
So I have had to learn to forgive, forget and move on…. and if it means letting go of people, it does. If it means letting go of memories, emotions, and letting wounds heal,than it does. It’s for the best to live and let live… and if I don’t, then I have only myself to blame for any ensuing misery.
We have a choice to be happy or not. We have a choice what we let get to us and what affects us and how much. If

Photographer: Ferdinand Daniels: Getty Images
something hurts me; it is because I’ve let it. The choice is mine and I have made it. Letting go of all of it… like setting off a handful of balloons into the atmosphere…
I’m letting go of the negative, of the bitternesses and of the bad in the past, and making way for only new in the future.