I usually dig through my journal before I write to give me a little inspiration or boost of imagination, and I came across a poem that I had totally forgotten about. Do you know that feeling that you sometimes get during the pastor's sermon on Sunday morning? ...the feeling that he has somehow been spying on you all week, and he's decided to revolve his entire sermon around your life? WTF?!? How the bleepin' heck did he know about THAT?!? That's kind of what this poem made me feel.
I think I stumbled across it at exactly the right time (for me, and for a few friends of mine who I know are going through some similar things). It's about letting go...
"Letting Go"
By: Anonymous
To let go doesn't mean to stop caring,
It means I can't do it for someone else...
To let go is not to cut myself off,
It is the realization that I can't control another...
To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences...
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means that the outcome is not in my hands...
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
I can only change myself...
To let go is not to care for,
but to care about...
To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive...
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be human...
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own outcomes...
To let go is not to be protective,
It is to permit another to face reality...
To let go is not to deny,
but to accept...
To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but to search out my own shortcomings and correct them...
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and to cherish the moment...
To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone,
but to try to become what I dream I can be...
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future...
To let go is to fear less, and love more.
I have struggled with "letting go" practically my entire life. I've always found it difficult to let go of resentment and anger (that's an entirely different post). I've never been able to let go of control over most situations without having a major panic attack. I've found it nearly impossible to let go of my own dreams for other people. I tend to cling to one-sided friendships in the hopes that maybe they'll come around one day and realize that I'm a pretty great person to have around. One of the hardest things I've found to let go of has been my definition of a fulfilled, happy, secure life and a "better" me.
Up until very recently, I've always had this checklist that defined what a "happy" life would be. Some of the list was influenced by what everyone else thinks I need to be happy, but most of it was my idealistic views of what life should be. "A person will be happy if they have a loving spouse, a handful of children, a close extended family who enjoys spending time with everyone, friends who care about me as much as I care about them, a couple of pets, an emotionally fulfilling job, a nice house in the suburbs, little to no debt, a knock-out bod," blah, blah, blah... I've spent so much time thinking about all of the things on my "List of Ideals" that I don't have, that I've lost sight of what I do have. So this poem came at exactly the right time for me.
This year has been a year of awakening, transition, and hopefully a new me. So my "List of Ideals" isn't entirely checked off. I plan on amending my list to include only the great things that I do have in my life. So I don't have a husband! Big deal! I'd make a better mother than I would a wife anyway! I'll just adopt a truckload of kids, load them all up in my used car along with my chunky-monkey self, and drive them over for Sunday dinner to my parents' house where they can play with their awesome cousins and get spoiled rotten by Nana, Papa, Aunt Christy, and Uncle Chris. I might even have their honorary Aunties come and spoil them too! (Actually, I think Christy and I'll let the kids stay at my parents' house and all of the Aunties and I can go have Girls' Night.)
So I'm learning. I'm learning what it means to let go of what I don't need in my life... and I'm learning what it means to be happy with what I have when I have it.
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