I reread something I wrote two years ago. I love rereading my old journal entries and reliving those exact moments -- those moments where I've had an epiphany, where I've cried, where I've laughed and ultimately where I grew. Those moments. They're so precious.
---
Saturday, April 02, 2011
on loss and acceptance
| I have a great fear of loss. I guess you could argue everyone is afraid of loss. But most people are afraid accidental, unexpected loss-- like death, or losing your phone or keys. While I definitely do fear those things as well, the loss that plagues me most on a daily basis is the conscious loss. Some call it letting go, some call it throwing away, and others call it cleaning. To me, it is loss. I've always been somewhat of a pack rat. To be clear, I'm not a hoarder; I'm not living under piles of unused trinkets and newspapers. I can just be a bit overly sentimental about things of the past. In my closet I can pick out old pairs of jeans and sweaters-- some dating back to high school-- that I just can't bring myself to throw out. Some of it is just good fashion sense (everything comes back into fashion some day!), but a lot of it no longer fits and remains purely for sentimental value. I have a pair of juicy couture jeans (I thought I was so cool) that are now two sizes too big, but were my favorite jeans in Italy. Looking at them, touching them and smelling them reminds me of all the plates of pasta, all the glasses of wine and all the fits of laughter I had under the warm, glowing Tuscan sun. I wouldn't be caught dead in them now, but I just can't bring myself to throw them out. Tossing them aside would feel like tossing 6 of the greatest months of my life away. My memories, while I know they're in my head, are just so tied to those jeans. They feel embedded. Engraved. Utterly and completely tangled. But all these baggy jeans and shriveling sweaters are really starting to weigh on my closet-- it's quite literally exploding. It's gotten to the point where the new, beautiful silk shirts and vintage beaded dresses end up crumpled into heaps in front of the closet, instead of hanging comfortably and securely inside. Yet those old jeans remain perfectly tucked away, protected and maintained in mint condition. And when that happens-- when the old overtakes the new-- that is when beautiful memories decompose and their true anatomies are exposed. They're baggage. And then I look around and I suddenly realize I'm drowning in it. A sea of baggage. At some point, unless you want to be on an episode of hoarders: buried alive, you've got to learn to let go. Release. To do this, to truly let go, you -- albeit a bit counter-intuitive -- you must master the art of acceptance. When I envision the actions of acceptance and letting go in my head, I see conflicting gestures. Acceptance-- catching or receiving something into my hands. Letting go -- throwing or dropping something from my hands. Opposites, no? But the truth is, the two go hand in hand. You cannot let go of something until you've held it. To let go of your past you must accept it for what it is -- the past. You must accept that the past is no longer real, simply moments of history strung together. Holding never brings it back, never makes it any more real. You've got to move on-- allow the past to be the past. Let it go. Dump your baggage. And how liberating it is. Open your hands and empty your closet! Wave your arms around like you just don't care! Once you've finally gotten rid of those old jeans, you'll find your hands are free and ready to embrace the new. And before you know it, you'll find that you have a new favorite pair of jeans that you're dying to start a closetful of new memories around. |
