They say when one door closes, another door opens, and when you finish one chapter of your story called life, it's time to start writing the next.

They say if you love something, you have to let it go, and that time heals all wounds.

They say everything happens for a reason, and that the best things often happen unexpectedly.

I want to know who "they" are and why they make all these wise statements with lack of explanation.

A door has closed in my life, a chapter has been written.

I loved something. I let it go.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for the next door to open, for the first words of my next chapter to begin to flow.

I'm waiting for time to heal my wounds.

We hear these statements so often when we are struggling with hard times, loss, or heartbreak, yet no one ever tells us how to open the next door or how to put ink to the paper and begin to write. We wait so long for time to heal all, for the best things to happen unexpectedly, so that we may realize why certain things have happened to us.

A door cannot be opened without work and effort, a chapter cannot begin without thought and a past. If all we do is sit and wait, we will forever live within the life we used to have, the life that is no longer ours. Things change, times change, people change. Every second of life that we live puts another second of life into the past. Why do we spend our time dwelling on what once was rather than looking towards the happiness we may already have within? Why is it so hard to accept the past as memories and live in the present? All we are doing is hurting ourselves more and more, creating immense, unnecessary pain.

The first words of my next chapter would go as followed:

I've lived, I've loved, I've lost. I've known something so incredibly beautiful, something that I am beyond lucky to even have had the opportunity to experience. I thrived within every blissful moment that the last chapter served to me, but as I said, that was the last chapter. I spent hours, days, months, with writer's block, unsure of how to begin my next chapter. All I was able to do was continue to relieve the last, in awe of how amazingly it was written. This is no way to live. With each chapter an author writes, the more experienced they become. Why must I look back on my last beautifully written chapter, unable to accept it as complete and something to read later down the road, when I have the utmost ability to write a piece even more magnificent today? Today, I will turn the last page of the last chapter for one final time. I will open a door, I will form a pen's ink into my words, and I will heal my own wounds.