On Letting Go

How I actually, finally, genuinely did it.

Looking too often into the past is as intrusive as peeking through someone else’s window. You don’t live there anymore.

I can speak fondly of many past things but I still don’t like to think about them.

I left my blues in the winter, like I promised I would. I’m remembering I’m in charge, and I need not suffer, and that in the end we are the cure for the illness we invent. There is something inherently tough about letting go of the past. It feels poetic and cool. It is not always necessary to over-intellectualize and micro-analyze our past, sometimes truly what we need is to leave it where it is. I’ll tell you the story of how I learned this.

In my quest to maintain a promiscuous philosophy when it comes to faith, I try to learn and try many things spiritually, not necessarily hoping to connect to one specifically, but admiring each in their own beautiful ideology. With that being said, I sometimes go to church, and sometimes I end up in rooms with women hovering crystals over me. And it’s nice. Last time I booked one of these sessions (free, by the way) was not too long ago because, for the last few months, with very little interruption, I’d been miserable.

In this period of time I learned many things. Some recipes, some boxing, and that I’m not alone. I also tried my first piano lesson and Sunday mass. I tried keeping pretty plants alive, and booked a solo trip. I was doing just about anything. At one point it felt like I was jumping through hoops just for a peaceful moment, and such thing never seemed to come around. Meditation, writing, or indulging was helpful, but I still felt like I was runninng from something that wanted to claw its way back to me at any cost.

“You are waiting for closure.” The woman told me (we’ll call her Teresa), holding two amethysts on each side of my head. I nod yes, with a cheesy little tear falling down my cheek. She then told me something that changed my life, as dumb as it may sound to you, reading this with your own issues and beliefs. Teresa said: “Do you know that you can let go of this without closure, and be free?“

She made me see that I was stranded waiting for something that might never happen, and that I was free to move on without it. That closure indeed was not a key I needed to open the cage. There was no cage. “Gratitude cleanses all things.” she said. This sounded oddly familiar to what I had been hearing in church. But how could I be grateful for my sorrow, what had I learned from it?

“You changed through it.” she reminded me.

“What if I don’t like who I became?”

“You don’t dislike her, you mourn the old you.”

“Now I’m weary.”

“Smarter.”

“Sad.”

“Grieving.” She said “Give it time…”

In that moment I remembered I had free will, as I looked up at her old dream catcher and her Tony Soprano mug sitting right below, tea probably getting dusty. There was nothing on earth I couldnt do if I stopped waiting for “closure”, for “the right moment”. And I’m sure the effect she had on me was the product of her own experience and not necessarily crystal therapy, but I was glad I didn’t cancel the session. Very glad.

I don’t want to sound like I know everything, I indeed know nothing. Yet for the first time in a while it really does feel like I’m on the right path. It ocurred to me this morning that I fear nothing. I don’t fear the future and I’m not haunted by the past. I don’t fear people, I don’t fear myself. Y si para algo soy buena, es para salir adelante. I don’t fear showing up authentically anymore. Simply as myself.

Be attached to nothing and awed by everything. How else are we supposed to go through life, really? in suffering, surely. And I’m not really an optimist. A fairly pessimistic person is telling you this.

In the end, the peace I wanted wanted me more, but I turned away from it looking back into the past. Ugh! the past. The only thing that is intangible and yet so very heavy. The golden, dark, consequential yet irrelevant past. Not to get too soapy. But let a girl with a Substack get soapy. This was a short story, maybe sounds too easy. She just remembered she can move on! well yes, maybe you’ve forgotten too. That’s why I’m here, that’s why we write. In case anyone anywhere needs to hear what we have to say. So let this Substack article be amethysts I hover over you with a little funny chant, oping to help. And tell me, what is the one thing you can do, but you forgot?