I’m a little late to jump on the reverb10 bandwagon but I’ve read so many amazing posts by my favorite bloggers that I had to jump in. Especially with this prompt…
Let go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?
I once blogged about how I had a hard time letting go of the past. It was a while ago, I think back when I started my internship on Capitol Hill in 2005. I let go of being scared and let go of feeling guilty about a relationship that ended horribly. It was a habit. I held on to things that meant nothing. Held grudges against mean girls, and ex-boyfriends who wronged me even though we’ve both long since moved on.
This year, I let go of the past. I confronted it all head on, and washed my hands of it. I let go of the “coulda woulda shoulda’s” about my career choices. I let go of those who broke my heart and those who’s hearts I’ve broken and continued to feel guilty about long past my wedding day. And I let go of caring about what people who mean nothing to me think of me.
I have a big heart, and I’m sentimental to all get go, and I can’t help myself but use the what if’s about anything that’s wrong in my life as a defense mechanism. I’m an escapist but drunkenly at a karaoke night, my best friend put me in my place and told me just what I needed to hear regarding all of that. I can’t let go because I’m an escapist, but while doing so I’m escaping a pretty fabulous life (not verbatim but you get the idea) and it’s incredibly disrespectful to what I have now to do so. She was right, and I thought about it and stopped thinking about it all. Stopped wondering what people thought of me. Stopped feeling ashamed of my career choices and stopped holding grudges.
We all have these ideas about how life should be when we’re in our late 20’s. Whether it’s the six figure salary, the dream job with the corner office, the perfect husband and a perfect life where you both work out at 6am together and then eat breakfast before commuting to your city jobs. I had imagined that for the longest time. When things got bad with hubs and I, when we hit rock bottom when he lost his job, I once wondered if I had made different choices in my life if things would be different. Easier maybe.
They might be, we’ll never know. But would I be as happy? Not a chance. I let go of wondering the coulda, woulda, shoulda’s and the what if’s because they’re not worth disrespecting the present. Yoga teaches us to be present. To live intentionally. By letting go of the past once and for all, I started living intentionally and I started living in the present.