The hardest thing to let go of can be the hardest thing to see.
[No. 10]
WHAT HAS BEEN THE HARDEST THING TO LET GO OF?
“Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace
I’m going through”
Bowie
How to determine what has been the thing? Life is a seemingly endless process of “not this” and “this.” We are snakes, repeatedly shedding skins. And yet, we are humans too and at times may cling to old layers for the sake of rhythm.
“One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages.”
Paulo Coelho
When I first read this question, I thought of the people and things in my life that were ripped from me too soon. I thought of relationships that I did not want to end. Aching to hold onto the good. I used to linger, breathing life into the potential of what could be or could have been.
And yet, over time I see there is a pattern, and there is a line. Going back to a well that no longer springs water can make you feel shaky in every sense.
“Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.”
Paulo Coehlo
When I was young there was one year in which my parents got divorced, my mom got sick, and my beloved grandfather passed away. It was devastating, and my body learned to be hyper-alert, to keep one eye open. However, even then I could not stop the tides.
Over these past few years, the pandemic as well has felt to me a symbol of trying to domesticate something feral. At first I truly felt at the mercy of fear. I was thrown off the mustang of life over and over as our daily lives were tossed and turned, and each time I was bruised darker than before. However, when we determine our sense of peace by seeking to sway our environment, we become more brittle, and our nervous systems can collapse.
In my case, I became so overwhelmed that I eventually hit a breaking point.
Then, in that puddle,
I surrendered.
Image by Hailley Howard
The wildest thing to give away can also be the wildest one to see. For me, in a sentence, on an ongoing basis [the hardest thing to let go of] is trying to monitor, to harness, to keep track of whatever is inevitably out of my wheelhouse [e.g. when a mudslide tears through your town, when your fiancé is unloyal, when your child develops her own serious desires]. I am not Moses; I cannot stop the ocean from swallowing us, if that is what the ocean decides.
As I age, I have observed in myself a diminishing investment in material things—even heirlooms —unless they feel alive. Over the past few years, we had to evacuate several times from our home in Santa Barbara [the Thomas Fire, etc.]. It was so surreal. And yet, when you pack, schlep, and unpack the seemingly vital things enough times, you start to understand that they are simply objects, and the treasures are your kids, your friends, and your passport. I do keep my grandmother’s star ring from Mexico close; however at the end of the day, I’d be at peace without it. When someone loves something of mine, I tend to give it away. It creates a white canvas in my soul.
Surrender to me then is a closeness with, or acceptance of, uncertainty. The unknown at its core is brimming with possibility.
It is a state of being detached from assuredness or arrogance. It makes me smile, just thinking about it! Surrender asks us to greet each moment with an open mind. It begins with a trust in self and a knowing that we can only predict so much! And we might be wrong! Surrender begs us to meet Mother Earth as a stranger, as a child, rather than trying to outsmart her or guess what she’s about to say.
In other words,
What is actually happening?
What is actually being asked of me?
What is actually mine to hold?
When I approach time like this, I feel glimmers of ecstasy. I am kind to my child’s dad. I am kind to lovers. I am kind to my angels. I find myself talking to strangers at the gas station, laughing at jokes I never would have thought I’d find funny. In these moments, I am charmed by my connectedness. I feel in my own small way in touch with the Buddha that lives in each of our bellies.
“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart.”
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
The hardest thing I have had to let go of is simply control. I wish there was a more poetic or elegant word, but there it is in its unassuming clunkiness. Utter surrender every day forever [the other side of this coin] is my key to this land of bliss, to parting this Red Sea and finding myself in a total utopia. And day by day by day and little by little by little, knowing I may never arrive, I wander toward it, still.
Letting go.
Letting the sunshine in.
Being ready to begin.
My job as a Emergency Medical Technician. My heart attack and related issues finally forced me to let go. I kept thinking that I could come back to it, but now I realize that I can not. I am 74 years old, so it had to happen eventually, I was just not ready for it.
I honor you. Those sudden transitions ask of us to surrender to what is in a deep way. A major letting go indeed…
the control my inner wounded child has on my adult decisions
<3