Everything is confusing in life. Each day we make choices, these choices are what dictate our lives. Every thought we have, every step we take, every word we say has an impact.

In my head, it’s easy to re-read things that were written in the past or think about things I did. It’s hard to realize that those words might have lost meaning to what they are now, and whoever wrote them might now regard the recipient almost like a stranger. In my head, it’s always a game of should’ve, could’ve and would’ve.

If someone showed up one day guaranteeing one chance to change the past, would you take it?

I know there are certain things I wish could have happened differently, but these are things a person can’t know until they’ve experienced it before. The only option is to take life as it comes, make yourself be the best version of you that you can be and move on with your life. Letting the things that have had their time go away with the wind with peace, poise and eloquence.

There’s no point in trying to involve yourself in someone’s life because that’s “what it used to be.” There’s no point clinging to strands of what could’ve been, because that’s not what is. People keep living and loving and learning and it is a constant never-ending cycle that you have no control over.

I am the one thing in life that I can control. I am the only one with my thoughts, feelings and emotions – the only one who can do what I am capable of.

Maybe you were only a part of someone’s life for a brief period in time. Maybe you were a four-year investment that ended in you disappearing. Maybe you faded slowly into the background with time because distance desensitizes the memories that once stung every time you thought of the passion within them.

A few years ago, I had to cut out a toxic person from my life. I had to relinquish all points of contact, but with no explanation. Now this is probably one of the most hurtful but necessary things I have ever had to do, but it got to a point where this person was living in a place where they thought memories from two years before this point were what was now.

They were leaving to go on a long trip, so I wrote a letter to them. But, two years later, after fights and anger and hatred was poured into the mix of the relationship, they referenced that letter. What they didn’t realize was what my reaction would be: that letter meant nothing now. It was how I felt then, in the moment, a stupid young girl in high school not knowing what to do with her life.

But the two years later, I was much swifter and smarter and wiser. I knew how I felt and I knew what I needed to do. And looking back, I wish I had never written that letter because they had kept it and probably still have it. Sometimes I wonder if I had handled things differently how things would have ended up. But, I knew I could never be what he wanted and he couldn’t respect that. To this day it still confuses me how much power words can have and how someone can write something so passionate and suddenly it just doesn’t have meaning anymore.

No one is innocent. We all have done this but hurt some more so than others.

This is what makes me wonder. What if I had never written that letter? What if I had never read the letters I got from various people in my past? Would I be thinking this? Would I be wondering?

In my head, it’s a pendulum of understanding how someone can say something so passionate and truly mean it. Yet, with time, they can look back and wonder how in the world they wrote or said this. Or not even that, but just how since then, things have desensitized because of time and unfamiliarity.

It is a double-edged sword, edges I’ve felt both of. And, to this day the power of words still confuses me.

In order to move on, you need to let go of the words, let go of the memories, place them on a timeline that crafts your past, and look forward at your blank future. It’s a blank canvas ready to be splattered with paint, you just need to paint it.

So now in this present chapter of my life that is only beginning, for a change I am actually making active changes in my life. For once, I am the priority. I am no longer concerned about keeping everyone else in order, but just myself and being the best me that I can be.

Because, I’m learning, everything else, it will fall into place unexpectedly and when it is supposed to. And until then and as this happens, it’s time to be happy and live life in ways I’ve been afraid to in the past.

xox,

M