Let Go

I don’t know if I do “let go”. How do you let go of a part of you? How do you let go of something that has shaped you? No, I don’t think I’d like to let go. I’d lose myself. I’d lose someone I love deeply. I wouldn’t know who I was or, where I was going, or what I was supposed to do. It would be, for lack of a better word, like I have amnesia. I don’t find peace or strength in letting go. Instead, I choose to be immersed in my grief to let it live alongside my happiness and give it texture. I choose to hold it closely. To let it scream loudly when it wants and to stroke it tenderly when it cries. Without grief and trauma, love and joy lose their edge. They become commonplace, un-extraordinary. I choose to love my grief like I love myself.

Forward is inevitable. You will, without a doubt, continue to move forward through life and find along the way great stretches of boredom dotted with pits and peaks. You will find laughter and anger. You will find love and heartbreak. And if you try to separate one from the other, you will kill the very beauty of life. You cannot keep one from seeping into the other, just as you cannot keep breath from seeping between your lips.