Didn’t I just write about letting go? Am I already back here again? I guess it must be pretty important to me now and likely so for many others in their middle to late mid-life. I remember recently learning of the term decumulation. That is the phase of life I’m entering into. It is a real thing. Accumulation is so familiar. It felt so permanent. It felt hopeful and healthy and respectable. I’m still trying to feel similar things about decumulation.
Do not forget letting go is active. It is a choice. It is not the absence of anything; it is the active process itself. It is not a destination, instead it is the journey. We can’t check that box and move on to the next thing. We can’t pretend to do it. Do or do not, there is no try!
The grace and hope parts are optional. But they make it so much more beautiful and pleasant. Grace has always been an elusive stretch goal for me. I think I am getting better at it if only going from a D+ to a C-. I am likely not the best judge of how I am growing in this regard. Unfortunately when trust is also something that does not come easily it makes evaluation by others even more difficult.
Crying helps. So does making soup and going for walks. At times making art and listening to Throwing Muses or Radiohead or Miles Davis eases the sojourn as well. Writing definitely does. Quiet is also healing. It is amazing how much is contained in quiet. There is a world in between each note, each beat, each breath.
Every little drop of everything contains the entire universe. We never have to fear running out of any of it, least of which Love. Even if we cannot do certain things like we used to or other experiences are only in the past we have new adventures, new perspectives, new things to learn and grow into. Watch the moss grow on the stump and the ants and worms build a new hopeful future. Mushrooms! Maybe someday I will have the wisdom of a mushroom or a gentle mist. Maybe that is all that we are, maybe it is just learning to remember. Learning how to walk backwards. Maybe too it is re-remembering or confidently wrapping ourselves with hope and grace in all that is beautifully mysterious. I just keep coming back to all that I really know is that I do not know.
Letting go is difficult for me. It feels instinctive to resist it, to work to counter it or even eliminate it. It definitely is more cat than cow, more exhale than inhale. Of course not letting go is not an option. It is as if on a treadmill taking us to a cliff, the cliff does not go away. We can either reach the cliff in peace and hope and grace or not. Indecision is a decision. Inaction is action.
I am safe. I am Loved. I Love.
