Quote of the day...er...week...umm...hey, look, a quote!!

"...besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child." - Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

For old quotes, look here.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Ohhhmmmmmm......

Lately, there's a sort of echoing refrain in my head. I have been thinking about it, hearing it in various places, and even dreaming it off and on for most of this year. It's a recurring theme in my life, one of which I need reminding on occasion.

Let it go.

Let. It. Go.

Crappy things happen. Some of them are rather large hunks of feces, and take a while to compost down into roses. Some are so small as to be laughable.

I've known my share of big chunks of poo in human form. I've had my share of "formative events" to get the hell over or be medicated for (eh, I don't medicate, but could, if I wanted, have a veritable pharmacopoeia at my disposal...crazy has its uses). Once I cottoned on to the fact that some of my early crap-fests were contributing to my crazy, I also realized that I could choose how to respond to them, what sort of power or place I gave them in my life. Strong stuff, that.

Still, sometimes I need reminding that I can let it go. Holding on to anger, resentment, and fear only serves to make me angry, resentful, and afraid. Wow, deep, huh?

Let it go. So that guy just cut you off in traffic. So what? Let it go - what will your anger serve? Nothing, that's what. It'll just give you an ulcer. So someone was unpleasant in the store today, so what? I bet they're having a horrible day, and they're transferring that unhappiness to you - so don't pass it on or feed it. Let it go. Really.

I was peeved this morning - many technologies failed at one time, just when I was especially sleep deprived and prone to ire, and I vented that ire here in my blog, where it was safe. I tried very hard, and succeeded a little, not to let that spill over into my interactions with my family. I didn't yell, stomp, or slam anything and wake Bird, who was sleeping late because he needed to. I didn't call T names or blame him, and I tried not to snap at Mum when she was trying to be helpful with other things that needed doing. I did threaten Bob the Wonder Computer with a large, magnetized hammer at one point, but he has forgiven me. See? Even my laptop can let it go.

I feel a little better now that Mum and I have gone out and scrubbed the trailer down. It's not clean, per se, but it's cleaner, so that's an improvement. The physical activity helped me forget that my legs still hurt all the way up to my ears from that long hike my out-of-shape self took two days ago, and it was productive...and somewhere along the way, I let go of my ire of the morning.

If I can learn to let go, really, I can mitigate my back pain, my crazy issues, and my weight - because all of these are the result of holding on to the crappy things I endured as a child and into adulthood, until I found out I didn't have to...that I could walk away, I could let it go.

Holding on just gives "them" control, even when "they" are long gone. Do I/you/we really want to give others controlling influence after all? I don't think so...I think I need to let it go again, and stop giving the shadows of my past all my power.

Yep. Let it go...

1 comment:

Aunt Becky said...

Letting it go is a great way to handle things, honestly. I work really hard at doing that (believe it or not).