Surfing The Strong Current Of Life: If In Doubt, Don’t Go Out.
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Let go, let go, and then let go some more. Then what? What happens when you’ve let go so much — and let go of so much — that your feet start to leave the ground?
What happens when you let go so much that you start to float on the currents of this little planet of ours… currents of water… currents of air… currents of electricity? You inevitably succumb to their alluring pulse, and throw yourself in, to be held and carried wherever they choose to go.
You begin with short experimental voyages… getting used to the feeling of weightlessness. You carry your anchors with you, so that you can stop the motion when you need to catch your breath, or when something on solid ground momentarily catches your attention.
But soon you find yourself journeying for longer and longer periods… drifting further from the place you started. Journeying so long and so often into that space of lightness and bliss that you feel more at home there than you do anywhere else. It gets harder and harder to settle.
You initially meet these periods of groundedness with resolve. You know how to behave in that place of commitment, order, responsibility. You can still go through the motions and be effective. Achieve what needs to be achieved. Provide what is expected of you.
But eventually resolve turns to irritation, and then to resentment, and finally to confusion. Nothing in that world makes sense, and you lose the skills required to function in the way you once did.
As for me… I’m somewhere in between. Still functioning in the day-to-day world that has been my home thus far, but it’s getting more and more difficult. I’m getting more and more and more confused… am starting to lose the skills (and interest) I need to be there.
Even things like grocery shopping and eating are becoming tricky. I do them because I have put myself on a schedule… trying hard to keep them habitual. I set an alarm for myself at 11 AM to eat food, and set a reminder for myself every Sunday to buy food… usually I follow through. Even sitting still to write (things like this) has become difficult.
A friend of mine recently sent me a quote by Mindy Hale: “Growth is painful. Change is hard. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.”
I’ve been working so hard over the past couple of years to unstick myself from the places I no longer belong that I’ve become a tiny bit unhinged. Letting go of relationships that no longer feel amazing, letting go of things (like physical possessions) that have begun to feel oppressive, letting go of values that I thought were mine, and maybe even were once, but are no longer.
A couple of things have recently happened to advance me deeper into unbearable lightness of being territory. I moved to a new apartment a month or so ago… leaving behind the home where my stepson (and beautiful dog) and I moved when my marriage finally shattered into a million pieces of poisonous glass — cutting and illuminating all at the same time so that the choice to leave wasn’t really a choice.
That beautiful, cozy, safe place was where we settled to lick our wounds and begin the slow process of release, recovery, and reconstruction. But the time had come for both of us to leave, as that part of our story had concluded. We needed to leave, so we could move forward (ever forward). My stepson figured that out a few months before I did, and moved away to get on with his journey as an adult, with new paths of his own to forge.
When I left, I gave away so much. Remnants/reminders of my past. So I’ve landed here in this new space with very little. I am light and limber. Agile. Ready to go at any time. The other thing that has just happened is that my stepsons turned 20. They are officially grown up, and my role as parent is completely different than it once was. So… another gate past.
I’m feeling restless, and my brain is having trouble locking onto the here and now. I feel like I left my heart in Venice Beach earlier this year (my thoughts drift there at least once a day… it felt like home). The irony in my story is that it is my connection to my people that allows me to let go with conviction and to let go completely. I need to know I am held in their hearts so I can travel further.
This is where the Mindy Hale quote becomes relevant. Most of the people in my life now understand where I am… they are learning to let me go, learning that I will always return, learning that I carry them with me wherever I go. But it is painful. I feel as though I am straining at the end of some invisible leash — one I’m hesitant to snap (if I’m honest with myself).
I think that to take that final step — to surf the currents with confidence — I need a true keeper of my heart. Someone who will hold it with an equal combination of gentleness and strength while I drift, float, and wander. I think that is what is missing. I’ve resisted that thought (that possibility) for a while now, because I had myself convinced that kind of connection was another anchor. But… I might have been wrong about that. I’m not sure.
Interesting to have arrived in this place this morning, carried by the currents… it’s certainly not what I intended to write.
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Andrea Baker has a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology and once knew everything there was to know about Byron and Bundy. She is a certified Yoga teacher and ever-evolving student in Vancouver’s beautiful Yoga community. She has divided her life equally between Canada’s east and west coast … never living far from the sea. The ocean has influenced her writing, her Yoga practice, and her approach to life. She distrusts capital letters, loves sticking eka pada koundinyasana, and wishes she was just a tiny bit taller. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or her blog.
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