Rebuilding

You seldom realize how much you’ll miss something until it’s gone. You take things for granted. You get used to them. Suddenly they’re gone and you’re left with a gnawing feeling of absence and an unshakable longing for what was. You can try to replace what was, but that’s often like trying to piece a vase together again after it’s shattered. You might be able to get the rough shape together again, but it’s never truly what it once was. You have to move forward. You have to move beyond what was, and build something new.

Maybe that something has elements that you can salvage from the original, but it has to be its own thing. Getting trapped in the mindset of holding on too tightly to what was makes it impossible to fully accept what is now – or the possibilities of what could be. You can lament the passing of the past, but you can’t allow that to derail you in the present, or block you from planning for the future. If you’re going to be relevant and valuable moving forward, you have to be willing to rebuild…no matter how hard that is.