Days before my grandmother passed away I was hospitalized for stress and the lack of knowledge on how to deal with it properly. The following is bits and pieces of the last serious conversation I had with my grandmother. I held this advice the most dearest to my heart not knowing it would be the last…

She sighs deeply and takes hold of my hand. “Hay mi niña. Don’t you know you can’t live till you let go. The past will have a hold of you, tearing at you; it will grab you by the throat if you just let it reel deep within you. No Corazon. No. Don’t let them have power over you or they always will. You gotta forgive baby. You gotta let go, and you gotta move on.”

"But how do I do it grandma. I don’t know how to move forward. I feel stuck unable to move or to go on.”

“Hay mi niña es que no aprendes. You hold on to things forever child. You love too much. You don’t know when to stop loving. You did it when you were 5 with a wounded bird that fell out of the tree. While everyone thought he was to be discarded you were determined to prove otherwise. So you spent every second next to him, nurturing him. You cared so much that when he was ready to flee the nest you still couldn’t let him go. You love too much child. That’s who you are. But you gotta love yourself first, you hear that? You. Then everything else will fall into place.”

There she was trying to tell me that I cared too much and was often lost because of it. I am my grandmother’s child that way. I will love till my heart bleeds. But in her infinite wisdom my grandmother taught me a valuable lesson. That sometimes though we feel stuck unable to move on we must accept that some things are out of our control. Like the ending of a story or the end of a movie. We can’t write every ending, we can’t cast every movie. Eventually life will write itself. And you are left with no choice but to let things go, grieve, understand, forgive, and move on.

Christopher Columbus once said that you can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. To move on you must let your past behind you. To move on you must learn to forget that past. “You have to forgive to forget, and forget to feel again.” The first step you take is always the most important one. The first steps you take on any journey won’t get you where you want to go but without those first steps you would remain standing in the same place.

Moving on. Are but two simple words and the advice usually given after a break up. Two words that are easily said, very rarely understood, and harshly taken for granted. Sometimes when an ending is eminent the last thing we want to think about are those two words. Some would rather contemplate the past and keep hold of it than dare imagine the future. The thing about contemplating the "I could have, would have, should have's" in our stories is that they leave us in the same place. No solution land.

Because the past is the past and there is nothing you can do about something you cannot control. Sometimes we let our emotions overpower our common sense. And we let our desperation get in the way of reasonable thinking. So we get stuck in between what was and what we won’t let be. It happens even more naturally when we come to endings that are difficult to understand and even cope with. But that’s the thing about life, some things just are and not a power in the world or the most wishful thinking can change it.

And you could scream and shout "What!? How!? Why!?" But there's no use. Some endings just are. And there is no rewriting it, there's no sequel. You can’t rush healing. IT’S A PROCESS. From the sleepless nights to the “I can’t believe I loved you” days. Till one day you wake up and find that the pain has finally ceased. Like a fever that finally breaks.

The thing about relationships ending isn’t that you’re alone BUT that dreams die, castles crumble, faith crashes, that things change. And that you must rearrange what you thought before. Getting used to the change isn’t easy. But maybe that’s what “moving on” is… getting used to all that’s changed.

Not being loved, not loving. Whichever fits you. Maybe it’s getting used to new feelings and new circumstances. Facing the cards you were dealt and accepting them. Someone wise once told me that some things happen for a reason. You might want something but it may not be what you need. You just have to recognize it to stop hurting.

With the struggles, the heartache, and the pain comes lessons learned. And the truth is that just like my grandmother said when you are at peace with yourself everything else will fall into place. Sometimes we have to stop trying to know why life works the way it does. And why things happened. And learn to accept the peace that comes with knowing that you just can’t control or know it all.

There is no such thing as you lost it all. Because after all for every ending there is always a new beginning…