Tag Archives: letting go

LET BE -Day 26 in a year of …..

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Day 26, August 17, 2016 @2:42

For everything there is a beginning. But nothing happens until you start. Here I am, showing up. Do I have anything to say? What can I say about my intention of being – of not striving?

All my life I have strived to be better than what I am. I attribute my striving to feeling of lack in all aspects. That can happen when you are an immigrant and/or a child of immigrants. I was both having come to Canada from Hong Kong at 8 years old.

I strived to learn English, rid my accent, to catch up in school, to ‘fit’ in. I strived not to mind that I looked different – my hair is black, my eyes slanted, my nose small. I strived not to mind that we celebrate different things in different ways. I strived to be acceptable, to be the same as everyone. I failed, of course, but one never stops striving. There’s always something new to strive for.

imageMy mission for today is to learn to stop. It is not easy but I can at least let go a little each day. There really is nothing to do and nowhere to go in this moment. There is no one to compare, to judge, to please except myself.

For everything there is also an ending.  Can you let go a little?  Try it.  Till tomorrow.

 

FACING MY GREMLINS

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IMG_2285It’s a beautiful sunny day – calm and cool, but not too cool.  I wish I was calm and cool but I am not. Those little gremlins are nibbling at my heels, disturbing my peace.  Sheba is making her little whining noises at the same time. Comfort me!  Feed me!  I rub her ears and tell her it’s a bit early.  I give in.  Otherwise, I would have no peace.

Perhaps today is not a good day to declutter.  But then, would there be such a day?  I’ve been waiting for years now.  It hasn’t shown up so I took a deep breath and started.

I’m a clutter bug, not a true blue hoarder.  But then, maybe I am or could easily become one.  I better get a move on!  I am not plunging head long into the dig and clearing of stuff. I don’t have the energy or presence of mind so I am treading softly and carefully doing the easy stuff.  I’m having a tough time parting with stuff, even the easy stuff.  I haven’t practice sorting and detaching at all.  It is really the ideas and memories they hold and not the things themselves.

The gremlins are getting more stimulated now.  I feel their agitation in my head.  I breathe in and out, seeing and feeling myself in the warm water of the swimming pool.  My arms rise and fall with each stroke.  I’m flipping my legs softly like a mermaid’s tail.  I can do it! I gather the dried roses from the basket, breaking off the blooms from the stem.  I will enjoy their colours for one more day.  Tomorrow they will be recycled back into earth.  No need to hang on and gather dust forever.  There’s more waiting in the wings.

It’s tough letting go of forever.  I’m feeling the gremlins and fear of letting go.  After all, it is the goal of this blog – to dig deep through the fear and letting it go.  Another deep breath and I’m down in the basement.  I have dug through the basket of laundered clothes, untouched in at least 3 years.  It feels as if a bogey man was hiding there, ready to pounce out at me.

IMG_6967No bogey man.  I found only myself, the one who forgot to take care of herself for awhile – and some clothes I didn’t put away.  They are in bags now, ready for donation to Value Village.  Is it melodramatic to say that it was TOUGH and I feel a bit shaky?  Well, it is and I am.  It’s definitely time for another cup of tea and maybe a chocolate chip cookie or two.

TAKING OUT THE TRASH

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The prairie wind is blowing again.  It blows and blows, the kind that makes you feel weary.  It is the kind that gives me a headache and the shivers, as if someone is going to walk over my grave soon.  So it feels so good to have a shower, washing off the layer of old sweat and grime.  I am clean once more, unencumbered, naked and pure.

I take out a bag of trash…old underwear and an old hair dryer.  The heat had somehow melted a hole on one side and I burnt a finger on the hot molten plastic.  Until then I was still using it.  How foolish I am to hang on to it when I have another one in better condition.  I take that as a sign to let go of the broken, misshaped and the dysfunctional.  But it is easier said than done.  So I MUST be alert and pay attention to these things before they bite me in the ass.

My mother use to tell me so many things….things that nagged on her.  She tells them to me because I’m her oldest and she needs to get things off her chest.  And when I said to her that she shouldn’t talk so to me, she said who could she talk to if not her daughter.  It was just garbage and for me not to mind and to throw them away.  That, too, is easier said than done.

But she did listen to me when I told her it was making me sick.  I am not getting so much now.  Chinese people are proud and private.  They do not like to air things in public.  They have to save face.  Something must have happened to me.  I am not such a good Chinese.  I am not saving face.  I am a stranger in a strange land.  I’ve discovered that I cannot go home again.

But I have found a new land of LOLL where each person takes care of their own trash.  In this land of mine, there is no history, no accounting, no envy, no accumulation of trash….Each day starts anew.  The sun still rises in the east and sets in the west.  And all is as we make it to be.

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THE SHORT OF IT…OR LETTING GO

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So I tend to hang on to things, like clutter…of all kinds.  I have a difficult time of letting go.  I’m like Sheba with a bone.  It is said that it is really not about the stuff, but something else.  So what is it, then?  Do I know?

I find everything hard, even breathing nowadays.  I have gained back the whole nine yards and probably more that I have lost when I first got Sheba.  It is hard to maintain that pace, or so I like to tell myself.  I guess you might say I’m a bit down in the dump with winter rearing its ugly head.  The morning is dark, dark till 8 am.  It is hard to drag my butt out of bed in a cheerful manner.  But being an adult, I still TRY to do my best even though I do feel like crying.

My phone is ringing and I answer.  I am hoping that someone is calling just to chat….you know…how it used to be, when people call up each other for a visit?  But no, it is from someone who is doing research of some sort.  I am honest.  I don’t want to answer a bunch of questions for someone’s research project.  You might say I am somewhat melancholy, but what the heck?  Who needs to be brave and wear a cheerful front all the time?  It is still October and there is snow on the ground and everything is messy!

But I am brave!  I can still get out of bed in the morning, though not cheerfully.  I am not hopping up and down with joy but I am still interested.  I am still interested enough to get with the program, to get out of the house and face the world, to take care of business and to get my hair cut.  It is such a relief to be shorn.  It is symbolic action of some sort…. to rid myself of the excess, of the weight of unnecessary cargo.  I am letting go.

I am letting go of many things…excess hair, the need to fix everything for everyone, the need of doing the proper thing all the time, the need to live up to my own expectations.  I am letting go.  I am free falling.  I am creating my own serotonin.  I am creating joy.  I am also having a glass or two of wine.