LETTING GO DAY

Today is National Letting Go Day!  Wow, where do you start?  Where do I start?  In one degree I got a jump on it with the remodel of my kitchen, but in another I seem to stay stuck - in stuff, in dreams, in ancient memories, in missions unaccomplished and unresolved.  So how do we let go?

There are books written about it, people making a living telling us how to let go,  to move on,  to clean up our act, and our lives and our spirits that sometimes get stuck too.  Little jewels of wisdom, sound bites if you will, that at first blush sound easy.  Leaving me with a momentary positive feeling of 'okay I can do this.'

I am able to do this, to some degree, in the shining mountains or by the glistening sea.  They have an extraordinary way of cleansing my soul.  But then, all too soon, the dancing shadows from the past come back to the surface when life as I know it, rears its ugly head once again.

I have been in a funk lately.  I think it is exhaustion.  I hope it is 'momentary' exhaustion.  I have sat and contemplated all the things I should be doing.  All the things I need to do, to accomplish, but movement does not happen.  I fluctuate between denial, anger, excuses, frustrations and futile attempts to complete a project - any project. Why?

I dread the phone ringing.  I dread someone asking me to do one more thing.  It sends me into orbit. I feel like a homeless balloon floating above tasks and people, unwilling to return to anything and wanting to float away leaving it all far behind.

Yesterday I had to say 'no.'  No to a project, an event, that had finally come to fruition after working on it for a year.  I was physically and mentally not able to attend.  I should have felt sad and cried or something, but I simply sat.  I tried reading. I tried needlepointing which always seems to relax me, watched a couple of movies, fed the dogs, and took the trash to the curb. 

I feel like I am letting people down, but do nothing to correct it.  I had a long much needed conversation with  a friend who knows me better than I know myself.  A friend that I feel safe saying things to and not being judged.  After talking, I felt safe and sound enough to allow myself permission to do nothing, to stop for once in my life, worrying about other people and trying to please everyone on this earth.  I felt released.  If others don't like it, understand it...so be it.  This is my life and my exhaustion, and I have earned it.

A list sits on the kitchen counter, pushing, prodding me to get busy. I add to it and then ignore it.

Like everyone, I say I am fine when asked.  But what if we are not fine?  We say, 'nothing's wrong', when we seethe with hurt and pain and a tiredness that won't go away.  We ignore it when this pain and hurt drives out joy and leaves us feeling stampeded.  Loss of trust eats at us, jades our thinking and eventually paralyzes us from action.

I suppose sometimes our souls become anesthetized and keep us from movement in any direction  We become jaded and blocked from movement.  The question then is how do we, once battered and now exhausted, learn to live again?

I doubt that the answers come easily.  They never do.  I told my friend I was a 'mess.'  He simply said 'You are not a mess, you're human."  With those few simple words, he had given me permission to feel what I am feeling and to continue to seek solitude and sanctuary.

So today mental confusion still reigns and the day begins.  The doves are cooing, peaceful music fills my home, and sleeping dogs surround my feet.  For now that is enough.

Today I will inhale peace and celebrate National Letting Go Day, listening to exqusite piano poems.

I hope. I hope.