Gratitude
Gratitude.
Live and let go. Experience and let go. Love and let go. Let all of it go. Give and let go. Letting go. It can be so hard. Especially with holidays that bring nostalgia to the foreground. This is not a lament, more an emotional snapshot, or maybe several snapshots. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about loss. What has been lost and how those things have shaped who I am. I am grateful for my losses. I wouldn’t seek out the pain of loss, but its fire ads the temper I need to live life to the fullest. You have to be sharp, soft, stubborn, and yielding all at the same time. Imagine that! Sharp enough to cut through the crap. Soft enough to empathize. Stubborn enough to make it past the inevitable obstacles. Yielding enough to understand when stepping aside is the best choice.
Among my losses have been friends, lovers, family, opportunities, things, car keys, what have you. Among the losses that I regret the most are the losses of friends where the loss was directly because I didn’t nurture the friendship. Sometimes it was because I had to focus on my own inner life, but mostly I can look at my lost friendships and know that I just simply screwed up. So now I have a better understanding of what it takes to maintain my friendships.
There is one other type of loss that I regret deeply. In my life, I have allowed the opinions of others to sway my “this goes to charity” process. Rather than decreasing the amount of my physical stuff based on my own needs and preferences, I gave into the needs and preferences of others. I don’t miss the stuff, per se, but I do regret the behavior of submitting to the process, such that I devalued my own judgment, character, and preferences. The lesson for me here is to be true to myself.
There are lost opportunities, too, that will never come again. Maybe I can go back and sort of do them now, but some opportunities have a definite season, that once passed, will never come again. I never made birth announcements for either of my girls. I might just regret that forever. Yes, I can find a baby picture of each, and make the announcements retroactively, but it would not be the same. Now I know to take those opportunities and make the most of them, to the greatest degree of my ability.
Here’s a regret that is a regret no longer, and almost a relief. On a trip to Hawaii, I let myself be talked and harassed out of purchasing a small, gold-plated bracelet made up of links shaped like Hawaiian sea turtles. It would have been one of a very small handful of souveneirs that I purchased while there. On the plane trip home, I ended up in tears over the experience; not because I had to have the thing, but because of the tactics that were used to stay my hand in the purchase. Fast forward six years, and I’m relieved to have one less emotion laden thing to deal with and remind me of lost dreams. On the other hand, Honu will always remind me of that trip, which will remind me of my loss. And round and round I go. In the future, if someone who claims to love me acts in this fashion, then I know to get out of that relationship faster than I can say “Rumplestiltskin!”
On a lighter note, I regret my lost childhood. Don’t we all? BUT….I am making that up in spades! Go me! That’s one of the glories of being a grown up; I can chose how, where, why, and how to play, and I play hard. Of course, of late some of my play has interfered in being a responsible grown up, but I try not to be too hard on myself. I will find the right mix of play and work one of these days.
So, I’m not particularly depressed or melancholy while I write this. More thoughtful. Gratitude. A life lived as a trial by fire must end in gratitude or the pain of enduring the flames is worth nothing. Why suffer that much for naught?
Live and let go. Experience and let go. Love and let go. Let all of it go. Give and let go. Letting go. It can be so hard. Especially with holidays that bring nostalgia to the foreground. This is not a lament, more an emotional snapshot, or maybe several snapshots. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about loss. What has been lost and how those things have shaped who I am. I am grateful for my losses. I wouldn’t seek out the pain of loss, but its fire ads the temper I need to live life to the fullest. You have to be sharp, soft, stubborn, and yielding all at the same time. Imagine that! Sharp enough to cut through the crap. Soft enough to empathize. Stubborn enough to make it past the inevitable obstacles. Yielding enough to understand when stepping aside is the best choice.
Among my losses have been friends, lovers, family, opportunities, things, car keys, what have you. Among the losses that I regret the most are the losses of friends where the loss was directly because I didn’t nurture the friendship. Sometimes it was because I had to focus on my own inner life, but mostly I can look at my lost friendships and know that I just simply screwed up. So now I have a better understanding of what it takes to maintain my friendships.
There is one other type of loss that I regret deeply. In my life, I have allowed the opinions of others to sway my “this goes to charity” process. Rather than decreasing the amount of my physical stuff based on my own needs and preferences, I gave into the needs and preferences of others. I don’t miss the stuff, per se, but I do regret the behavior of submitting to the process, such that I devalued my own judgment, character, and preferences. The lesson for me here is to be true to myself.
There are lost opportunities, too, that will never come again. Maybe I can go back and sort of do them now, but some opportunities have a definite season, that once passed, will never come again. I never made birth announcements for either of my girls. I might just regret that forever. Yes, I can find a baby picture of each, and make the announcements retroactively, but it would not be the same. Now I know to take those opportunities and make the most of them, to the greatest degree of my ability.
Here’s a regret that is a regret no longer, and almost a relief. On a trip to Hawaii, I let myself be talked and harassed out of purchasing a small, gold-plated bracelet made up of links shaped like Hawaiian sea turtles. It would have been one of a very small handful of souveneirs that I purchased while there. On the plane trip home, I ended up in tears over the experience; not because I had to have the thing, but because of the tactics that were used to stay my hand in the purchase. Fast forward six years, and I’m relieved to have one less emotion laden thing to deal with and remind me of lost dreams. On the other hand, Honu will always remind me of that trip, which will remind me of my loss. And round and round I go. In the future, if someone who claims to love me acts in this fashion, then I know to get out of that relationship faster than I can say “Rumplestiltskin!”
On a lighter note, I regret my lost childhood. Don’t we all? BUT….I am making that up in spades! Go me! That’s one of the glories of being a grown up; I can chose how, where, why, and how to play, and I play hard. Of course, of late some of my play has interfered in being a responsible grown up, but I try not to be too hard on myself. I will find the right mix of play and work one of these days.
So, I’m not particularly depressed or melancholy while I write this. More thoughtful. Gratitude. A life lived as a trial by fire must end in gratitude or the pain of enduring the flames is worth nothing. Why suffer that much for naught?