... holding on, containing and letting go...

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower;

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

………………………………………

 Joy and woe are woven fine, 

A clothing for the soul divine. 

Under every grief and pine 

Runs a joy with silken twine.

                                               ~William Blake (1757-1827), "Auguries of Innocence"

For various reasons, I’ve been taking a stroll down Nostalgia Lane these last few days. With all my life changes, it seems poetic to softly gaze over one’s shoulder at the past. I also received some unexpected messages that were reminders. Even my last post mentioning my first love has me reflecting on yesteryears. And of course, there was Poe’s returned love story that makes one ponder just a wee bit.

Some of this leads down a path I’m not so proud of but in this age of social media and the interwebs haven’t we all tiptoed into lands not quite protected to gaze at the spiders who can’t tell they’re being watched? I’m sure you too have peeped a time or two. So I crept through a maze channeling my younger self’s memory of names that haven’t been spoken in decades only to find a picture showing that the shell of what was had changed immensely. In fact, I wouldn’t have recognized him if it were not for the place right around his eyes. He wasn’t looking directly at the camera and while nothing looked like what I remember, there was that sense that he, somewhere, was still there…somewhere… perhaps contained deep within. Without going into detail because goodness I wasn’t supposed to be where I was, he had changed in more than outer appearance. His identity, the one that I knew, was altered in a way that from my reading of that one picture shows that he let go. And I don’t mean that he let himself go either. It’s hard to explain while remaining private but he seemed to have stopped being who he wanted to be/ who he once was.

All of this started me thinking about how we become who we are, and how we hold on to who we are in spite of how hard living can be. People say that being goth is a phase. There are plenty of us who prove that this isn’t always the case. But it makes me think about those of us (because I had to for a time) who had to let go of our clothing or look just to function at work or among our peers or family…whatever the reason, it was just easier to let go and try to be someone else, or at least hide who you actually are. I’m so grateful that I returned to Me, that I’m no longer trapped being inauthentic in a fake life. But how many of us have let go and have never returned?  Maybe they’ll never return.  So when I look at the picture, I’m not thinking about the weight he put on (haven’t we all put on some pounds and aged and etc.), but I’m wondering what happened to him after I knew him so well. What was it that changed him? Was life hard for him? Would he put on a happy face? Would he be the same? I don’t think this has to be an awful thing. Sometimes letting go is simply letting go. Sometimes we let go for our loved ones.

 

I typically choose to hold on… to memories, to connections, to inanimate objects… even to my hair that was in awful need of a trim. (Because of this, I had to opt for a chop just to get my hair back to healthy.)  I had a piece of my wedding veil preserved in a heart pendant with glitter (by ModJules on Etsy.)  It arrived this week and I’m wearing it close to my heart.  After drying my bridal bouquet, I placed my much loved bouquet in a jar. Similarly, I put my fella’s boutonniere from the wedding into a snow globe sans water so that we can gaze upon it without disturbing the petals.  

In my interweb prowling, I came across this quote:

“You’re just another story I can’t tell anymore.”― I Wrote This For You

A poignant line about letting go… perhaps to get back to healthy.