Letting Things Go

I think about my inability to “let things go” and realize, with the help of a friend, that it might not be such a bad thing.

The Atheist's Guide to ChristmasYears ago, I went to a Solstice party at a friend’s house near my home in Washington state. This was back when I tried to spend the entire winter at home — maybe 2013? — before I realized that I needed more sun in my life than that latitude would ever offer in December and January.

The party was well attended by the “freethinkers” group I was a member of. We didn’t celebrate Christmas, but we celebrated the Solstice. I celebrated it as the end of the ever-shortening days and the return of the sun.

We had a bonfire (of course) and we gathered around it. There was snow on the ground and we’d spent some time sledding down a hill nearby before it got dark (at around 4:30 PM). One of the partiers handed out slips of paper and pens. We each wrote down something we wanted to let go of forever on that slip of paper. I’m pretty sure I wrote down something to do with my wasband or divorce or the dull, dead-end life I’d had with him. Then we each burned our slip of paper, symbolically destroying these things to remove them from our lives forever.

Ah, if only it were that easy!

As they say, time marches on. I’ve changed a lot since that winter night spent gathered around a fire with friends. I’ve achieved amazing things: building a new home on an amazing piece of land, growing my helicopter business far beyond what it could have been in Arizona, starting a successful jewelry-making business, exploring new hobbies like beekeeping and watercolor painting, and, more recently retiring from my work as helicopter pilot, selling the assets, and diving head first into a life cruising along the east coast in my own boat as a US Coast Guard-certified boat Captain.

Maria and Pups
Me and my pups during a recent stay at the dock in my dad’s backyard. While I’m not convinced that he fully understands what makes me tick, at least he has a clue, accepts the way I am, and doesn’t try to tell me how to manage my life. I appreciate that.

I’ve also resolved to keep toxic people out of my life, a decision that has cut me off from a handful of friends and most family members. After being in a mentally abusive relationship for so long — and not even realizing how it was affecting me until long after it was over — I simply decided I didn’t want to take shit from anyone ever again. Life is too short to let other people get in your head and mess you up emotionally. Why should I be laden with the baggage heaped on me by other people? Best to let them go and move on.

And that’s what I’ve done. Or at least tried to do.

Understand that I’m very happy in my life right now. I have the freedom that I need to do the things I want to make myself whole, to feel fulfilled. For a very long time, I didn’t have that. There’s so much in life that I wanted to do but was held back by people who either didn’t understand what made me tick or were actively trying to prevent me from achieving my own goals because of their own personal failures or jealousies. While I’m not by any means “rich,” I have enough retirement money socked away to do the things I want to before I get too old to do them. (As I’ve said elsewhere, I named my boat Do It Now for a reason.)

Jupiter Island Beach
Dawn at the beach near here the other day. Today’s sky isn’t quite dramatic, but I’m hoping for more sun when I do today’s walk.

As I type this, I’m sitting on my boat at an anchorage along Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, feeling it rock in the wind. Later this morning, I’ll take my dinghy ashore, cross the little island there, and take a good, long walk on a deserted beach, picking up shells along the way and feeling the warm wet sand on my bare feet. Sometime before New Year’s Eve, I’ll travel down the ICW past Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and cruise down the Florida Keys to Key West. Along the way, I’ll anchor out and snorkel in aqua blue waters from the swim platform of my boat, along reefs full of coral and tropical fish. I’ll do this on my terms, on my schedule. And if I want or need to change my plans, I’ll do it without pushback from anyone else.

How can I feel anything other than joy?

But lurking behind the daily joy I experience in life is sadness. It comes mostly from the betrayal of someone I loved and trusted and it has been made worse by the knowledge that people in my family don’t understand or care about me. They say that blood is thicker than water, but in my life, most blood is like a poison acid that burns. Casting these people from my life stops the pain they were causing and helps me move on with the life I want, but I retain the sorrow of lost relationships that once meant a lot to me.

Simply said, I can’t let go of my past and memories that haunt me. So here I am.

I related all this to my friend Jason just this morning as I was preparing to write this blog post. Jason is a very smart, thoughtful, and intuitive guy. His response via text was extremely helpful and worth sharing (with his permission, of course):

Part of being alive might be living through pain. As in … while it doesn’t feel good, it may be an essential part of the human experience.

I’ve also heard that pain can be a messenger. And sometimes we learn more about ourselves by sitting with and reflecting on our pain.

I always love this chapter on joy and sorrow from The Prophet. It helps me think of pain in a positive way:

The Prophet Book Cover

I won’t share the whole quote here; you can read it for yourself. But here’s the meat of it (for me):

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

– Kahlil Gibran

What does this mean to me? I think it explains why I feel so much joy in my everyday life — it’s because I’ve had so much pain in the past. The pain dug a hole that the joy can fill.

So maybe it isn’t necessary to let things go completely to move forward. Maybe having some pain is necessary to have an equal amount of joy. Maybe I should stop thinking about letting things go and just keep moving forward. I’ve been doing pretty well so far.

How about you? How are you doing? What do you think of all this? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments on this post so we can all get something from what you have to add.

And, by the way, Joyous Solstice to everyone!


Discover more from An Eclectic Mind

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

13 thoughts on “Letting Things Go

    • Yeah, Jason is good for me. Very refreshing to be with someone who is thoughtful and non-judgemental. He’s back home now, prepping to go home for the holidays, but we’ll meet up in Key West on New Year’s Eve — hence, the travel deadline.

  1. Solstice is my favorite day! (And Central WA has been particularly bleak this winter…lots of gray skies and very little snow…I LOVE when the sage is covered in deep, white snow.) Anyhow, in my own family they call me the black sheep but frankly I’m the only sane one IMO so I’ve been withdrawing from them for decades. The pandemic both helped and made it worse (due to anti-vax direction many of them went in). But my husband and I have a strong circle of like-minded friends and I finally realized that if I met these people (my family) today I would not be friends with them so why spend time (and get bogged down in all the blood relative issues, etc)? Doesn’t mean it’s been easy to detach; family ties can be such heavy baggage. But it is much healthier (and it’s our life, right?!) Good to see you posting again — always enjoy your honest writing and practical perspectives!

    • I’m with you 100% on family baggage. And I like your perspective: would I be friends with these people if I weren’t related to them? That’s a good test. I know the answer.

      And thanks for the kind words about my writing. I’m going to try very hard throughout the new year to get at least four blog posts done each week for my two blogs. (That’s four total, not four for each; I’m not nuts!)

      • That test has helped me a lot, and it’s even resulted in re-connecting with some cousins who ARE like friends. Sheesh, we’re in our 50s and 60s now, so we know what is best for us as adults.

        Thanks for spending some of your favorite holiday here! Oh, and write because you want to…not because you said you would. But you know that :) Happy winter solstice!

  2. I’m pleased to hear that you are essentially pleased with the critical decisions you made along the road.
    I have read your posts for many years and it was soon obvious you are a strong but not ‘hard’ individual.
    I have many regrets in my life including the crass blunder of trying to reassure the widow of a good friend that time would heal the loss she felt. Grief, I now know, is not like that. I wanted to be kind but sounded glib and shallow.

    Emotional pain does not evaporate but we can adapt and learn from it.

    Have a life-affirming Solstice. It’s the oldest human celebration. The return of light.

    • Yeah, I had a real problem with the people who kept telling me to “just get over it.“ Some things you just can’t get over. People don’t understand that unless it happens to them, too. I don’t blame them. They tried. They just didn’t understand.

      The winter solstice is my favorite holiday because it marks the return of the sun. For the next six months we’ll get more and more sun until my least favorite holiday rolls along: summer solstice. Enjoy the day!

  3. Wow! My husband and I were just talking about how lonely the holidays can be when you have strained relationships with family. Such a beautiful way of looking at everything. Thank you so much!

    • People put far too much stress on the importance of family, but I don’t think we should allow anyone — including family members — to mess with our heads. RedW had a great way of looking at it in a previous comment here: the friend test. Friends, by the way, can be just like family — a good relationship with a friend can be stronger than a family tie. Don’t let people guilt you into dealing with family members who cause you pain. There’s no reason for it.

      Enjoy the holidays!

  4. I’m a follower of yours for years. A fan. Maria, this “checks” with me so much. I have a handful of years until I can get to your point in life, but this inspires me to keep going. In my case, I have a very small, close and supportive family, but have many friends and colleagues who have led me astray. Energy vampires is how I have read they are. And I need all my energy, thank you. It is liberating to decide that, without any general malice, you’re just not that interested in them anymore. Anyways, cheers my dear, I adore your posts…

  5. Yes, DO IT NOW! Love that name for your boat.

    I found this blog after viewing several of your helicopter-related YouTube videos (great content!).

    Just read the article above and elicits the thought that everything is happening “for you” vs. “to you”. I like this perspective, especially when something undesirable happens, we can then ask “what am I supposed to learn from this/how does this help me see what else is possible/what other choice/s do I need to start making now?”

    I was led here hoping to find more of your helicopter content, and realize you have retired and moved on to boating. Wishing you all the best with your new adventures on the water. Cheers, Cory

    • There’s tons of helicopter content here, but not any new videos. I wrote a lot about helicopters when I was flying. Now, not so much.

      I think the most important thing we can do in life is pay attention and work with the cards we’re dealt. And try to get a better hand when we can. The worst thing we can do is just wait around for something to happen to/for us. We need to make things happen. And we need to do it before we get too old to enjoy them.

      Best wishes to you! Don’t give up on my YouTube channel. I have a few more videos to come. I just need to sit down and edit them.

      • Awesome thanks for the reply. I booked a test flight with a helicopter school to see if it clicks with me. (was scheduled for yesterday, got rescheduled to next weekend d/t weather).

        I’ll keep an eye out for your YT channel videos. Cheers, Cory :)

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.