‘What could have been’, never existed.

Though regret bats her eyes at you,

Don’t follow the gauntlet of fiction she lays down.

The path is not a cement, yellow brick road,

That has crumbled on a poorly laid bed of circumstance and ignorance.

It is the paver you set your foot on next as the one behind disappears.

Though disappointment gossips through your mind about how you failed,

how others failed, how life abandoned your dreams as though they meant nothing,

(they are nothing but vapors), turn a deaf ear.

Though sorrow stalks you, knifing your heart to shreds, calling you to bleed all your hope until you’re empty,

apply the salve of stored up joy, of the gift of love, of the generosity of happier moments.

Today is certain.

Today is substance.

Today your heavy foot can take another step,

on solid ground.

Choose well, and keep walking into tomorrow,

without the baggage of things that never lived.

---

 

Go into the new year unencumbered with the dross of 2025.

I know I will. Every day is a gift and I won’t give one up to looking back as though a cross road still exists.

Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year!

Best, Clare