Hold Them Loosely

​This being a morning person can be a lonely place.  I guess it can be the same for being a night person.  When I get up it is mostly dark.  There tends not to be people rushing around with places to go and people to see at that hour.  As time goes on people do emerge and go to work, but for a long time it is just silent.  Unless of course you are our back neighbour, and you check on the fire that has been burning all night.
The thing for me is, thoughts cross my mind which I investigate.  Today I considered how it is best to give something all I’ve got.  I think it is that way no matter if the thing is good or bad for me.  When it is bad for me, I tend to put the brakes on it and walk away.  But that is a learning curve.  What is bad for me may be perfectly ok, but just not for me.
Whatever I do, it seems something said to me recently sticks.  “Hold them loosely.”  It was said about a you beat stamp collection I had received.   I actually thought what was said was so good.  I reckon it applies to everything I have.
Years ago, I had what I considered were my best jeans.  Ok wearing them did not make me look handsome, but it was the best I could do.  As they say, “if the door needs painting, paint it.”  This door needed sanding back and several layers of paint applied.  But I tried to come up alright with a scrub.
The thing is, those jeans were given to someone else.  I would like to say I gave them away as I recognised that another person had a need greater than mine.  The jeans going elsewhere was a totally selfless act on my part.  I could say that, but I would be lying. 
I did not know they had gone until I wanted them.  I resented their disappearance.  In hindsight I was holding them tightly.  Fat lot of good that did me.  But I do reckon there was a lesson for me there.  Jeans really are neither here nor there, and there are many things more important.  But I reckon that as well as giving something my all, it matters that I hold whatever I have loosely.
Things are really important, but I need to know they can be gone in an instant.  I found that out with my stroke.  One day things were one way, and the next, things I had taken for granted were gone.  In an instant.  Overnight.
Holding things loosely is not easy but it seems to me necessary.  I love and hold dear many things, but it seems even if I “own” them, they are on loan.  It is right and proper and responsible that I protect and where applicable nurture what I have, but if I am honest with myself, I am going to lose the lot.