Letting Stuff Go

Sometimes we are responsible for prolonging the pain that someone or something has brought into our lives. We often rehears the sad situation just for the satisfaction of remembering how badly we were treated by the circumstances! There are many things in life, not the tragic losses, but the ordinary disappointments, that we can handle best by just letting them go.

Here is my own example. I lived for twenty years in a very small home that with literal blood, honest sweat, and actual tears I had wrestled into a comfortable place to live. As a single mom, I reared my daughter there, so I was deeply invested in it. My remarriage required a larger home—there was another person now, a bigger one—and so I sold the little house in which I had invested so much. Later, that owner resold the home, and when I drove by, I was astonished. The garage had been remodeled and was now added living space. The ivory painted siding was now white, and black shutters had been added. It looked nothing at all like the home I had reluctantly left!

But appreciating the new look was not all I felt. I began to feel something like resentment or displeasure. "I wish I were the one who had thirty thousand dollars to remodel. Why couldn't I have put in n a nice lawn?” I suffered with those thoughts all the way home!

Sometimes I have the idea to drive down that street and pass by my former home—just to look—and then I remind myself that it would only be to my hurt. There is nothing to be gained by seeing what someone has accomplished that I was unable to do. It only creates discontent and added regret.

So then, the way to treat some of the minor griefs that come to us along our daily paths is to let stuff go. Some baggage need not be carried!
 
MaryMartha
 
Art from http://sxc.hu/