Category — becoming a writer

Though it took the better part of thirty-two years, I’ve realized that letting go is essential to holding on, in that strange way the universe has of demanding balance and equilibrium. It hardly ever seems that way during the release; we sense it as a loss, a vulnerability, or a failure- which is exactly what compels us to hyper-vigilance but also keeps clarity and perspective out of reach.

Holding fear and love at once is damn near impossible; it’s exhausting and heart-wrenching and it tears at your soul in the pre-dawn twilight. Things feel heavier than they are, and the weight becomes unbearable, but so does the laying down of burdens. Worry offers that false sense of security, the illusion of control, a feigned preparedness for potential disaster. It feels safer without really preventing anything.

I’ve always excelled at holding on to love but routinely fail at letting go of fear, and so became a master at suffering beneath that crushing load of doubt.

This site was born five years ago last Saturday, and with it came the rebirth of my voice and my dreams, in all their beautiful, dangerous glory. I stand much closer to that girl’s vision than ever before, even though nearly every imaginable detail is different.

No one could have predicted all of the events that made up those years. Hindsight makes it tempting to wonder if at least some of them weren’t answering my subconscious call, if this very exercise wasn’t an unwitting message in a bottle to the universe.

The last five years slowly eroded every part of my life that didn’t serve my true self, whether I was ready to admit it or not at the time. They provided me with quite the education. Of all the lessons I’ve managed to learn, letting go of fear is by far the most challenging.

It’s also the only way to success.

Laying aside the pain of ancient wounds to hold on to new trust. Gracefully retreating in battle to secure a larger-scale victory. Surrendering to the chaos of change and transition in order to pursue big dreams. Leaving bitterness and its rabbit-fever comfort of confinement in search of freedom and betterment. Deciding to admit hurt by letting go of righteousness. Laying down self-criticism and judgment of others to make more room for compassion. Trading fear of failure in for hope and faith.

Choosing love over fear again and again and again is how we become the people we are truly meant to be. Including and especially: loving yourself too damn much to suffer the weight of carrying both on tender, human shoulders.

The key to my personal cage was discovering how to honor my emotional intensity without being swallowed whole: elevating the personal to the universal. I stumbled upon it in an attempt to write honestly about my feelings without revealing details that had the potential to embarrass or hurt unnecessarily.

Much later on, I realized on an emotional level that there isn’t a problem, feeling, victory, defeat, idea or experience that hasn’t been had long before I inhabited this good earth and won’t live on long after I’ve left it. Reminding myself of this truth eases that fear and self-loathing in a way nothing else can, even if it still takes me a few days to turn the ship around.

We are never truly alone in our suffering, even when that isolation seeps bone-deep and makes every waking breath an ache behind one’s rib cage.

For me, that alienation is a good indicator that I’m pulled into an old pattern of tragedy. Coming home to universal truth soothes those deeply personal wounds and makes it possible to transcend all of that fear and shame. From that higher perch, my perspective is more objective.

That’s how I learn to let go. Again and again and again.

there was a dream
and one day i could see it
like a bird in a cage
i broke in and demanded that somebody free it
and there was a kid
with a head full of doubt
so i’ll scream till i die
or the last of those bad thoughts
are finally out

- the avett brothers “head full of doubt/road full of promise”