Every winter you see them, the few trees who just will not let go of their leaves. Little brown leaves flittering in the frigid wind. Hard as the wind may blow, they hang on and hang on. Is the tree holding on, or is it the leaves that will not let go?

The word for this hanging on is marcescence. It basically means that leaves that were supposed to fall in late autumn and early winter do not drop. There are several theories as to why this might happen, but the truth is unknown.

We are all like that sometimes. We just won’t let go—no matter how cold it gets, no matter how hard the wind blows, we hold on with all of our might. We hold on to fantasies about how it was supposed to be—waiting and waiting for the fantasy to come true. We hold on to relationships that are not working, bargaining with a reality that is not likely to change. We hold on to jobs that we hate, because we do not believe we deserve or should be allowed to have what we want.

For example, someone in your life may be unable to listen for very long to what you have to say, and even if they do listen, they do not empathize or maybe even try to understand. Well, you say, I can keep working with that—they’ll learn. They have such a beautiful soul—I’m sure that they are really good people deep........

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