Hold On and Let Go

 I have spent the better part of a week writing and deleting.  And thinking about change.  I have read the articles, I have taken the class (literally, I’m a certified change management professional), I have lived change, and I have struggled with change.

I have led teams trying to change and I’ve watched others lead teams trying to implement change.

I have initiated changes and I have had change dropped on me like a ten-ton weight.

I have embraced change, I have rejected change and I have sat on the sidelines waiting to see which way the wind was blowing before I chose a direction.

Change has caused me to lose friends, to re-evaluate what friendship really is, and to realize that some of my friends weren’t friends at all.

Change has made me realize that we cannot control situations or others, we can only control our response, and sometimes even that can be pretty hard to control.  We cry, we rage, we retreat, we fight back, we give in. 

 We fight to hold on and we fight to let go.

 Somedays you hold on because that’s all you can do. 

 Somedays you let go because it’s time.

And somedays you just sit in the middle and shake because the need to hold on and the need to let go are at war.

And that is the essence of change. A constant tug-of-war between holding on and letting go.  Change happens on its own timeline, regardless of how hard you push or how many books you read or how many times your friends tell you that someday you will look back and realize this is the best thing that ever happened to you. 

There are ways to make change easier, and goodness knows I have found almost every way there is to make change harder.  And here’s the only thing I know for sure:

You will fight to hold on and you will fight to let go. 

And that’s ok. There is no one right answer and there are far more questions than you ever contemplated.  Cry when you need to, celebrate when you can.  But most importantly, spend a few moments each day honoring yourself and the fact that you are willing to have the struggle between holding on and letting go.  As a very wise person once told me, everyone can change, not everyone will change. 

 You can, and you will, and that is something for which you can be grateful, even on the hardest of days.