Have you ever felt yourself holding on when you thought you should be letting go?

Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go.

— The Wonder Years

In my last post I ruminated about “Guarding”.  Today I’m still thinking about that but I’m looking at it from a different perspective.  You see, lately I’ve noticed that I often sit with my arms tightly folded and I’ve excused myself by saying I was cold.  But now I think not.  I think at some semi-conscious level I’m holding myself together, protecting myself from falling apart… If you will, I’m just practicing another form of guarding.

Lagging Behind

I feel like I’m lagging behind my expectations.  PattiAnn would probably tell me I’m being too hard on myself.  And maybe I am.  Still, I feel like I’m stuck on a plateau – languishing, going neither up nor down, wandering about the edges of here and now.  I can’t return to the old “norm” and I haven’t yet carved out handholds for scaling the “new” norm.  I’m in the dreaded “in-between”… (Hmmm, have I just coined a new “stage” in life, sorta like being a “pre-teen”?)

About a month ago I wrote in my journal:

I think I’m exiting this grieving tunnel.  Not sure.  But at least for the moment, feeling whole and thinking about priorities and goals and future.  Looking backward still, but in a different way than before.  Trying hard to do it with affection and joy instead of loss and sadness.  Mostly that’s working.

Now all I have to do is simply… what?  Get on with my life.  Oh.  That’s all.  Yikes.  That’s a BIG ticket.  I don’t know that I’m quite ready for that.  But life goes on and here I am – trying to figure out what comes next.  I’ve returned to my morning walking routine.  New route.  Taking the hills first instead of in the middle.  Changing it out.  Gotta remember to keep changing it out before I get bored.

Yet I still find myself doggedly plowing through projects that must be done, doing, struggling, carrying on (when I’m not procrastinating that is) with little sense of direction other than “do what must be done” and “see what’s next”.  Floundering in the here and now, I’m holding on when I’d like to be letting go and moving on.

I’m trying mightily to find the strength and know-how to climb to the next level because there are things I should be doing, ready or not.  Like figuring out what my purpose in life is now.  Traveling again.  Getting juiced about my art again.  Getting juiced about life in general!

Maybe It’s the Time of Year

In some ways I think it’s the time of year that’s affecting my mood – I’ve just come through the time when, last year, my late husband, after a significant battle against esophageal cancer, was finally feeling well and energetic again.  We began again to have real hope for a future.  It was wonderful while it lasted.  It didn’t last long.  And now I’m coming up on his death date. I’m still struggling with coming to grips with his being gone from my life.  And there’s no way back.  Forward doesn’t include him anymore.  I’m bereft and wandering…  Just when I thought I was moving on, I find I’m merely holding on, still looking for something I can’t even name… very much the way I felt several months ago when I wrote:

During these early days of Spring, 2010, I’m struggling to find answers to questions I can’t even get articulated.  And I’ve decided to be patient as I grope for those questions/answers – so, although I’m neither young nor poet, I’m taking to heart Rainier Maria Rilke’s advice when he wrote:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.

— Letters to a Young Poet

So, Patience My Dear Self

Once again, I must counsel myself, “Patience Ellie – live the questions, live into your answers.”  I recently read one of Jan Karon’s wonderful Mitford Series books, In This Mountain, and I marked a passage to come back to:

…he remembered a story, heard from the Wesley pulpit.  A young boy found a cocoon, and seeing how hard the insect struggled inside, [he] split the cocoon with his camp knife, thinking to let it escape.  Instead the nascent butterfly died.  A butterfly collector told him that it’s the struggle within the cocoon that gives strength to the butterfly and enables its wings to grow and develop.  Only then can it emerge and go free.

What a great reminder to slow down and stop rushing this tiresome process!  So for now I’ll hold on tightly to my memories and give myself yet more time to do the work demanded by this in-between time of my life.

And, as I go-slow, I’ll make this prayer a part of my waiting game:

Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you.

— Native American Prayer

I will hold on tight for now… And, somewhere along the way I hope to find myself dreaming new dreams, envisioning new destinations, spotting a new trapeze to grab hold of…  I can hardly wait!

Have you ever felt yourself holding on when you thought you should be letting go?