Farewell, no matter how joyous or painful is a gift. The end of something is the beginning of something new. New can be full of excitement or terror. New is different so don’t spin your wheels trying to make new the same as the old. If you are given a new opportunity to love, to explore, to work, to learn, to create or to build; don’t attempt to recreate what was, instead, embrace the change. Maybe you didn’t want change. Maybe you liked life as it was, and this change is inconvenient, unexpected, and unwanted. That’s okay, take a moment, feel your feelings, and then remember what I told you already; the only guarantees in life is that there will be change. Change sits at the crossroad between goodbye and hello.
What do you need to say goodbye to in order to greet your new day? Is it fear, bitterness, anxiety, insecurity, self-doubt? Those are aspects of your attitude that will negatively affect your altitude. Turn them loose because, like your prom outfit, they won’t fit where you are going. You’ve outgrown them. If you wear them into your new world, they will look ridiculous on the woman or man that you have become. Goodbye them away and greet your new day with courage, forgiveness, acceptance, faith, openness, joy, and peace.
Maybe it’s not a what; maybe it’s a who. Who do you need to let go of to usher in this new chapter of your life? Take control and learn that goodbye is a gift that you don’t have to wait for others to give you. It’s one that you can give yourself. Give yourself the gift of goodbye. Grab it! Unwrap it! Put it on. It looks great on you. When you give yourself the gift, you don’t have to look to a person for closure. You have gifted yourself with closure by leaving the fork in that crossroad, fully determined to head in the direction of newness. Choose to say goodbye or accept the goodbye given to you.
There are things or people that we need to leave. There are things or people who have left us. You have the power to determine how to see and use the gift of goodbye. It’s the prelude to a new gift. You now have the gift of starting over with all of the benefits associated with creation and empowerment. It is a new life or a new part of life, and you can say, it’s mine by design.
When you realize that no one who was meant to be in the next chapter, would have left in the last, you can start to heal and let go of the sadness. They left because their part in your story has concluded, and that’s okay. It’s okay because there is something that lies ahead of you that’s greater than what you lost. It will be greater because you will be better. You will grow and embrace a new outlook that will draw and attract people who will mirror what you have become. This is why it’s important to say goodbye to old attitudinal ways that may have prompted the goodbye in the first place and put on the new you, the new job, the new love, the new creation, the new song, the new deal, the new invention, the new everything. Put it on and wear it well. Wear it with your smile. Wear it with confidence. Wear it with boldness. Wear it knowing that you are powerful and that no goodbye is stronger than you and no hello will ever be wasted.