New Beginnings

What is a new beginning?  I wonder.  I wonder what it takes for some of us to let go and start over. I wonder why we hang on for so long..........  I wonder why we let other people influence our decisions and our happiness.  I wonder why we let the absence of others keep influencing our lives.  I don't know the answer to these questions.  Letting go is one of the hardest things I have found in my life to do.  Not just letting go of someone, but letting go of those feelings that they evoke in me. Life goes by so fast.  One day our children are babies and before we know it they are graduating from high-school. One day we are young and vibrant and the next day we find gray in our hair.  So is it feasible to think that after 50 we can start over again and have a new beginning of sorts? I don't know. I would hope so.  I would hope that there is still time to find the meaning to life and to love and to do all the things we dream about.  But new beginnings?  It really depends on if you can totally let go or how much you need to bring with you.  If you totally let go you leave all the baggage at the station, if not you are still hanging on to a half-full suitcase.  Sometimes I think we have to carry the half-full suitcase around because the baggage I speak of are sometimes memories that need a safe place to travel.  But are letting go and new beginnings synonymous with each other?  If we have a "new beginning" do we have to totally let go?  New beginnings are a nice concept but I believe that my half-full suitcase of memories will always be beside me on the train, not left behind in the station.