Fortress of Solitude

One
always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on
staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the
meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles,
shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what
matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an
end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a
long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long
time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t
take another step until you find out why certain things that were so
important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like
that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone
involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your
children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning
over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad
seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the
past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things
that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever
be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards
our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who
has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things
pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That
is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy
souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate
the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a
manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts
- and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for
other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach
yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so
sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in
return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be
discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional
television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that
shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning
you, nothing else. <!–
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Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come\n back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are