When The Sky Falls... Stand There Or Move??

It was Billy Corgan who first verbalized one of life's harshest lessons for me. To channel my inner Sophia, picture it... Long Island, 1995. The world was slower. It took longer to get a message across. Email was a new concept. Most of us couldn't afford to use our cell phones before 9 pm. You bought CD's from the wall because they replaced them for free of you scratched them, and we scratched them.... often. One day in the late fall of the middle of the last decade of the twentieth century, the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins told us this

"Time is never time at all

You can never ever leave

Without leaving a piece of youth

And our lives are forever changed

We will never be the same"

Just one year after that alternative rock classic hit the airwaves, my best friend left this planet at just barely 18 years old. To me, life seemed over. The pain was crushing and when you're facing the type of devastation that you KNOW cannot be taken away, you tend to lose sight of the long road ahead. I was also 18 and as badly as it sucked losing the one guy who seemed to understand me, I had a LOT of living to do. Yet here I was, bitter that life didn't work out the way I wanted and that probably cost me a few years of living. When tragedy strikes, yes, we need to mourn. We need to rest and recover and figure out what to do next.... but cannot give up. The Tower is that card in Tarot no one wants to see because the change hurts. However, if the Tower comes up, it's probably because you are letting your story write you. A woman who suddenly lost her husband still has to raise her kids despite her idea of the future being drastically altered. A person who lost their job just a year shy of a milestone due to a market crash cannot remain unemployed when there are bills to pay. Tomorrow isn't always going to look like we dreamed about it today. The way we handle the harshest lessons will help decide what the next lesson is and where that lesson will lead us. It's okay to hurt. It's okay to be angry that it didn't work out the way you imagined. It's not okay to stop. Just because it won't be the ending you expected doesn't mean the ending will suck... but that part IS truly up to you