Letting go is a difficult and interesting concept. What entails letting go? Why do we have to let go?

To be quite honest with you, I'm not sure where this is going, but I know what it was inspired by. A new chapter in my life just started and I'm not really sure why I need to let go of my past. I worked so hard in the past. I was in a world with steady opportunity, great friends, and I knew who I was then. I knew where I stood; this mark on the stage where I wasn't placed, but where I worked up to.

While my past is something that I am very thankful for, it isn't my safety net. There are no safety nets in life; it's a sink or swim situation and you are all you have sometimes. My past has kept me afloat when I needed it the most. Now, "thankful" might be a questionable adjective to use for the past, but it's the most fitting in my opinion. A combination of hard work and plentiful opportunities made me into a more complexly thinking young adult.

Don't get me wrong, there are some things I want to forget about the past. Things like pointless fights with my parents (everyone does, don't even try to convince me otherwise), or wasting all my time thinking about the boy who didn't matter in the end. But the past four to six years of my past I'm very fond of. I grew, I grew up, and I grew taller. (Quite literally on that note, I'm 5'10".) I know I have a good head on my shoulders and I'm plenty capable handling the next chapters in my life, but I largely owe that to my past- both the good and bad.

So why does everyone make such a big deal of cutting off the past? It feels like a red alert, like everyone is leaving their lives for the witness protection program and starting all over again. My past can still be a part of my life, and I can still visit and reconnect and help. I'm still getting used to this new chapter, and maybe my past is my reassurance that I'll be okay as soon as I become comfortable in the new part.

If your past was there for you the way mine was, don't feel like you need to let go. My past helped me start my own graphic design business, get into college, and provide even more opportunities that I'll discover later on. So yes, I do think about my past quite a lot. I also revisit places and people and memories of the past, but that's not going to affect my ability to make new memories, and a new past. So, embrace the past, and be excited for the future.