Whatever ails us, whatever hangs in the balance, all the lingering stuff, the ugly things, the emotions we may feel, if we are unsettled or lonely or searching, or unsatisfied…we must leave it.

Let it go. Let it be.

We can drop in the water, and let it rush beneath our feet, beneath the grate in the old bridge, the one we walk across in silence or laughter or tears, the bridge that stops us in our tracks, admiring the bent river trees, pining for wasted years. We can leave it in the water where we watch it float and race and dance—quickly to the other side—the other side where calm quiet overtakes it, where we see it gently spin and disappear.

All is good enough and we are good enough. We can want the future, but today is more important.

Whatever pulls and pushes us, creating the torrents we hold within, we can toss it off a cliff, watch it tumble down the mountain, to the bottom, to the rocks, where it rolls and skids and disintegrates, out into nowhere, out into nothing. We can watch it stop and settle and rest. We can let it be down there, where it might just leave us alone.

We are made of flesh and emotion, and bone, we are made of gushing blood, we are alive until we are dead, so there are some things we must let go of—now.

We are not too fat, too thin. We are not too loud, too strong, too independent, or too outspoken. We are not too much or too little of anything. We are burning, melting, rushing; we can be both full and empty, but we can never be too free.

We are ashes to dust, and dust to wind, we are inside the bellowing silence but for now we are simply breathing.

Today. For the time being.

Inhale, hold it, and exhale.

Let it go.

Our breath is all we have.

Whatever keeps us stuck, whatever holds us stagnantly in place, however the chains are tied, however we feel locked and gated and closed, we can shimmy up and out, we can move forward, we can do it without looking back. We can climb new hills, and take new chances, and swallow new ideas, and reinvent that churning, punching, time card wheel, our finite measured moments, here on Earth. Within our beginning and our ending, we can change.

The waiting is over.

Leave it, let it be, and step out.

We can be so together, look at us go! We can do what’s right; look at us doing right! We can make mistakes, and apologize, day in and day out; we can fight ourselves, and others; we can crave validation and we can give and give and give some more; we can give until our souls ache, but we must fully understand that what we give may never be enough.

Whatever keeps us up at night, makes us toss and turn, makes us anxious, or sad, or unfulfilled, we can chop it right up. We can scatter it across our backyards, across the field stone, into the dirt. We can give it to the birds, watch them take it away to the bushes, to the thistle, to the brush, our pain, our itching, now useful.

The things we cannot control must not control us.

The heavy things we hold, the things we carry deep, the things that bubble to the surface, the unfinished things we cannot tie off, we must let them go, let them be.

We can blow all that crazy stuff into a red balloon. Fill it up, release it from our grips, and watch it float away. All that holds us back will keep us treading in place for eternity, but only if we let it.

We can lift our heads to the sky, watch the sunrise, watch it set, let it go, let it all begin again, and just breathe.

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