Leave the Pieces Where They Fall

        I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them   
        together again and tell myself that the mending whole was good as new.   
         What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its
                    best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.
                                                                                                                    ~Margaret Mitchell

For almost everyone, there are moments in your past, that are shattered. By mistake, by circumstance, by your own hand or the hand of another. Moments in our collected history that if given the choice, we would forget about. But our memories are long and instead of leaving the pieces as they fell, broken, we often find the need to fix them. Like a valuable glass vase that has shattered, there are moments and memories, spans of time from which we have come, that for some reason, we think with enough tears and glue we can somehow put it back together again and make it whole. What we fail to see is that, what has happened to us in  the past are the moments that led us exactly where we are today. Cause and effect, will always be a driving factor within our lives.  We can relive the past over and over and over again, make the same mistakes repeatedly, but what we will never be able to do, is fix it. It is over. You can not go back and undo what has already been done. You can't go back and be a different person, make someone different or change anything that has happened. Why would you want to? Everyone has something in their history that hurts, that makes them sad or angry, even fearful. But the thing is, is that it's over. You can't take your past and glue the pieces back together and think it good as new. Because not only will you only be able to see the brokenness of it, but it will never be as strong as it was when it was at its best.  You can't change what has happened, what you can do is learn from it, make peace with it, and then move on. 

I know that it is hard to accept. If only things had been different, if only I had this life growing up, if only if only if only.... Thing is, the "if onlys" of our lives are meaningless. They didn't happen, you didn't grow up in some idyllic setting, with Ward & June Cleaver as parents, it happens. It shapes you, it scars you and if you let it, it will overwhelm you.  The past can be like an evil merry go round if you let it, round and round you go, over and over and over, and if you never get off, you never move on, all you will able be able to do, is go in circles.  You can't fix something that was broken, you can't mend it and and glue it and have it as good as new, because it won't be. There will always be the scars from when it was broken. Eventually the glue will fail and it will all fall apart again. Better to leave it broken, see it for what it was and then work on making something better, something stronger. Make your future as you want it, shape it and then live it. Leave the past behind you, the lessons you learned take with you, but leave the ghosts and the hurt where it belongs. It has no place in your future. 

Accept everything there is about yourself, I mean everything. The beginning of your story, every chapter you have added since. Make peace with yourself. Make peace with what has happened in your life, in your past. Then leave it there. Someone once said, "I never told you life would be easy, I just told you it would be worth it."  Use that one foot you have planted in your past, to propel you to your future. Leave the broken pieces where they fell, take sometime to appreciate everything you have gone through, conquered and withstood, fell pride that you have gotten this fair and know that it doesn't end here. 

Take back control of your life. No excuses, no "if onlys", your past is not who you are, it is simply what got you here to this moment today. You got it from here, make it brilliant.