One of the hardest lessons of life might be learning to let go.
Letting go of past relationships, old jobs, old romances, beloved pets and, of course, people when they die. Letting go of parts of ourselves that we have outgrown or which naturally cede to create space for the new.
Letting go of good health is difficult. Particularly if there is no hope of return to the good health of old.
If we want to stay adventurous, if we want to enjoy life and be filled with joy, if we want to overcome the anger that sometimes accompanies loss - that sense that something has gone wrong and can never be put right again - then we must learn to accommodate our losses. To live alongside them with as much acceptance and good humour as we can.
We can miss something forever, and often we do, yet there is always joy, always. There is love and beauty when you look for it. It’s only that sometimes life asks us to look somewhere new for it.
The new places where joy lives are often smaller and more quiet. I still have not lost the habit of being in a bookshop and seeing a book that my father in law would love and being sorry that he has gone and so has missed it. Sometimes I read or listen to things on his behalf, buoyed by the idea of the conversation we would have had about it afterwards. I don’t get to talk to him any more, but I do get to think of him often and wonder what he would have thought of all of the things that are happening now.
Of course, one day we too will be gone and we will have to find a way to let go of our lives as graciously as possible. This is not morbid, it is a simple fact of life. Buddhists teach a type of meditation where you imagine your own death. It is a powerful thing to acknowledge that impermanence, but more than that it is a joyful act, because it reminds us that life is so beautiful and brief, why waste it on what is not truly important.
As is so often the case, nature shows us the way: tides come in and out, washing the beach clean as they do so, flowers bloom and fade, trees grow green all summer and then fade in a blaze of glory.
Let go of the old and embrace the new without regret. Try to not hold onto life too tightly, you cannot save everything and nor would you really want to, since some of the best things you have are here because something else was gone. Childhood opens into lively teenage freedom, youth mellows towards middle aged wisdom, wild days mature into the joys of mother/fatherhood.
One day we will have to let go of life completely, and who knows what adventures begin then.
Sarah x