Time to Say Goodbye

It isn't easy to let go of people, especially ones that have been part of your life story for more years than you care to remember.

I've found letting go of a woman I called my best friend challenging.

No matter how the journey ended, I'd be lying if I said that many of  my memories of her were not filled with laughter, adventure, tears and challenges. 

They were!

We survived so much together.

Our friendship was not perfect but then neither were we.

You think after 30 years we would have figured it out: how to be true to one another.

She taught me to laugh and for that I will always be grateful.

I'm not certain how we ended up here. Two women that began a friendship when they were barely into their twenties.

Maybe I do know, but those thoughts I will keep to myself.

I can only say that I am filled with regret and sadness-the loss has been profound.

Too many things were left unsaid.

I thought we would be Ethel and Lucy forever, full of our crazy antics,

 but God had a different plan for us.

We only have each other to blame for this tragic ending; God handed us a gift and we squandered it. 

Beyond the bitterness and anger of the she did this, she forgot this, this is mine... are the memories.

I will never forget her.

You go, I go!

I guess we forgot that promise.
I bless her journey and hope God fills her life with abundance.

Cherish your friendships.

This life is but a brief spec in time.

Do not waste it with pride and vanity.

They make a lonely brew.

The Fork in the Road

I'm certain most everyone wonders what life might have been had they chosen a different path.

One decision alters our course and the effect of that choice ripples, impacting not only the people we know, but the universe.

It's strange to think that one person in seven billion could have that kind of power.

 We are all interconnected, a singular voice of humanity.

Each act we commit, knowingly or not, echoes through time.

Let's imagine you give a homeless person a hundred dollars and he uses it to clean up and go to a job interview. Had you ignored him he may not have lived another day.

Your phone rings, it's an old friend who weighs heavily on you. In that moment you decide not to answer. What happens?

You let someone into the line of heavy traffic and you save them from an accident.

You drive by an elderly person struggling with grocery bags. Do you stop to help, or not.

You meet two new people, decide to date the first one instead of the second. You later discover the one you passed on went on to become a famous novelist. 

If we could map our lives, we would see the thousands of forked roads we've encountered, the number of times we chose one path instead of the other.

At the end of it all we can have no regrets. Each choice defined and refined us and we must believe that we are meant to be exactly where we are.

If our lives are enriched by the love of family and friends, if our careers are driven by passion then our roads have been well chosen.

“It's the ride of life the journey from here to there living and loving every moment like we have none to spare.” 
― Jess "Chief" Brynjulson, Highway Writings