Ramblings of Letting Go
I didn’t have the greatest week.
It happens, I know, but there was a quality to this week that made the slips hit harder and the stings feel sharper. The quality doesn’t have a name, it just is. I’ve called it a ‘funk’, a ‘mood’, and a ‘weird emotional thingy’, but nothing really fits the bill. And that’s the most upsetting part for me. When you have something, or someone, to blame, then the idea is real. The quality becomes reality. You have control over it.
I tripped on the sidewalk: Blame the haphazard curb.
I can’t fill out a prescription: Blame the health insurance company.
I got into a car accident: Blame the asshole who wasn’t paying attention and rear-ended you.
Full pictures. Complete circles. No gaps. No missing details.
Oftentimes, my off-weeks are a result of my anxiety running loose about my brain. It forces me to fixate on the smallest faults; it encourages me to ease on down the road of catastrophizing nonsense; it manages to make up scenarios in my head without reason, all for the drama of it all.
Who do I blame then? My anxiety? Well that’s just my brain, now, isn’t it? Am I supposed to blame myself? (No, because I am faultless). And that’s just it.
Sometimes things just exist without a vendetta or agenda or reason. Sometimes things are out of your control. And I can’t let that go. It’s an incomplete reality. Shouldn’t there be a reason for everything? Shouldn’t every single puzzle piece be used to create a complete picture? Shouldn’t I be able to control every aspect of my own life as if I truly am the protagonist of my own novel?
“You need to learn to let things be and to let things go,” is what my therapist told me this week.
I was never good at letting go.
Legend has it, I am still working on it.
After she told me that, I began to fixate on the Serenity Prayer that shows up in every AA meeting that a troubled character goes to in a gritty indie drama produced by A24:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
It’s a helpful prayer, and that’s coming from an ex-Catholic. But my struggle is taking the tools and the prayers and the mantras and putting them into practice.
The idea of letting something go is challenging for me. From an early age, I was the sentimental type. Whether it was birthday cards, yearbooks, or an old Chinese menu, those things were mine. Those things were me. For years, I imbued in them meaning and emotions—the birthday cards were loving thoughts frozen in time; the yearbooks were ones I worked tirelessly on in high school, a statement of my hard work; and the old Chinese menu was the first piece of mail I ever received when I finally moved out.
In time, the physical objects disappeared — the cards turned to scrap paper, the yearbook now gathering dust, and the Chinese menu invalidated because they shut down during the pandemic. Yet the memories live on.
It’s a sweet thought, isn’t it? Until you flip the coin.
What’s true for the physical is true for the mental.
What’s real for the good is real for the bad.
I can go on for hours, but I’ll spare you the stream of consciousness garbage. The thing is, I’ve been thinking about this all week. Why can’t I just let things go? Why can’t I lose control, for once? Let the world take me where it wants and not have to always consider the good and the bad every step of the way. It’s simple enough when the objects degrade and the memories fade, but when their original form was all in your head, then what?
(Well, you end up in therapy, that’s what)
I have no answers for you, dear reader, and for that I am sorry. But maybe this long, rambling piece is a practice for all of us, if not just for me, of letting things be.
Bad weeks happen—and I can’t control that.
Good weeks happen—and I can’t control that, either.
If there is a god, may they grant me grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know when to stop writing about them.
