The fear of letting go.

Why is it that the most simple thing, that last fall leaf that flutters across your face- as if parting completely, can make you stop and cry, as if never to be seen again? Because we know certainly, that nature will sustain, and the leaves will grow anew, and the everlasting of the world will bring forth again in the new season. But the fear we have, when letting something that has a more meaningful message to oneself go, can have a more detrimental effect; not just in the present, but most undeniably the long-term.

It’s most definitely the nostalgia (for me at least) that I hold onto. The memories; those everlasting pieces that shape us into parts of who we’ve become. One piece. One beautiful piece of random ‘junk,’ can take me back; to a Friday night, dancing with friends in my parent’s basement, after a long, hard week, of working a job you loathe (Dad). This was the age of the early ’90’s and I was in my teen’s, and I would invite friends over, and my parents would have friends over, and we would listen to the crackling sound of the old ’45, playing the Moody Blues on Dad’s (seasoned) turntable, blasting as loud as the speakers could hold, and the night would seem to go on forever.

And this beautiful piece, that always caught my eye, was a worn mirror, framed out in large chunked wood. It held random little trinkets that my dad found interesting; I think that’s what made it special; and because I could always catch a twinkle of light that bounced off and reflected itself ever so lightly from the mirror. It’s these pieces. Little pieces of your life that, when brought about as to give away or trash, there is a sudden fear. A fear that, if this piece leaves you, it will not appear again (as the leaves do annually), and the memory will fade, as so many memories do.

There will always be some fear when parting, but this is simply the cycle of life. There is a taking in, a joy of new beginning, a journey, and an end- to everything within this beautiful thing we call life. Sometimes, we just have to let go, and enjoy the ride.

-K