Have you ever wondered how to tell if you are really ‘over’ something?
There are some things I am really great at letting go. I can usually keep it simple and it happens almost automatically. A lady blatantly stepped in line in front of me at the post office this afternoon and I said nothing. Not because I am afraid to speak up for myself as needed, but because she was older, didn’t speak English and I am not sure she understood what she had just done. When people cut me off in traffic or flip me off for mini-vanning as hard as I do, no matter. I am okay with brushing it off. If I argue with my husband I am pretty good at not bringing it up over and over and over again to torture him relentlessly with his shortcomings and past mistakes. Those things are the easier ones. There are some things that I can’t seem to brush off as easily. Obviously, not every life thing is as trivial as strangers cursing you or the elderly acting like it’s their world and we’re all just here in their way.
It’s not surprising that I have a more difficult time letting go of things that I have invested, or in this case, have held out hope to one day be given the chance to. This one thing, in particular, is one that I have laid down. I have thrown it down, kicked it away and shoved it aside. I have reasoned with myself and fully understood the importance of getting over it.
Each time I know it’s for the best when I walk away, and secretly my hope is that I won’t go back to retrieve it. When I do end up holding it in my hands again I can’t pinpoint how that came to be.
Frustrated, I’d ask myself, “Why do I keep doing this?” I knew things weren’t going to change. There are heart matters that I am not sure ever make a lot of sense, especially when they go against what could be seen as typical or things that just are.
What do we do when those things, just aren’t?
What about the won’t ever be’s?
What the hell do we do with those?
I never really knew if I should just hold out hope for the more rare, and unlikely, just in case, scenario.
I have been told, Let go and let God, more times than I can count. Other times I hear, Just lay it down at the foot of the cross, or Just give it to God. I have found that it isn’t that these suggestions aren’t powerful. It’s not that they aren’t helpful or suitable. I also don’t think that their useless pieces of advice. For my thing I thought that letting it lay would mean that I didn’t care or that I was giving up when I believe that people can and do change, always thinking the best of the kind of people who Maya Angelou would probably say have shown me who they are dozens of times and I should have probably believed about a dozen times ago.
When it finally happened I didn’t even preplan it.
I actually hadn’t even realized that it was gone.
I looked around one day, nudged my husband excitedly, and began detailing for him my inaction to this person and the situation. I explained how for once I didn’t react, respond, overthink, or contemplate ten thousand possible scenarios for the behavior (or inaction/disinterest). of this Somehow I let it go and it happened naturally.
I am not even sure I had anything to do with it at all is how far removed it all felt. Still, as I sit here talking to you, I smile. Not because I don’t think about this person from time to time. but because I have taken my energies back. Too much has gone into this one-sided relationship that has only actually developed inside of my head, in my dreams, and in the core of my unmet expectations. That relationship has finally come to an end. That’s not how relationships work.
This has been a ten year long ongoing healing lesson that I have not handled with the most poise, grace, patience, or understanding. Actually, none of those descriptors are qualities I ooze from my pores naturally, but I think that was supposed to have been the whole point.
This entire shit show has reminded me of some really important things.
I do think that sometimes life doesn’t always follow the bricked path because I believe that the magic happens when we aren’t really sure what God is doing. That is where our faith grows. As we hold on for dear life, scared to death, sometimes disappointed in ourselves, we reach out and cling to the one who we can count on to make sure that we don’t actually die through whatever we’re going through. We end up growing through it all, and on the other side, after our feet touch one of those bricks, we are yet another version of ourselves. If you’re like me, you look up and nod.
Through this thing, I was reminded that my recovery is an ongoing, living, breathing thing and no matter how many sober days I accumulate, I will always have something more to learn and see and to and experience for the very first time. I am thankful that my recovery journey and the principles I live by always seem to somehow be in alignment with my faith journey, and I am excited to continue to learn more about myself, and more about God as my life continues to change and unfold.
I think that maybe it’s not always about letting go. Maybe it is supposed to be more about being open and willing to changing our perspective. In this case, it took ten years, to see that none of this has ever really been about me and God used it for something good in my life anyway.