LETTING GO

I remember what it was like to stare out at streets that I had never seen before.  I was sitting in a giant leather chair…surrounded by over-sized oak furniture and baristas enthusiastically shouting out drink orders to a line up of patiently waiting coffee drinkers.  A few hours later, I would be heading to the airport and ultimately, back to my family in Ottawa.

It was a stifling hot Thursday afternoon in this moment and I had made my way through the streets of Portland until I found a place where my mind could settle.  Ten days earlier, I didn’t even know that I would be in Oregon…but a series of unexpected events had me buying a last minute plane ticket across the Continent to spend a week immersed in a world of creativity and possibility.

I had just spent over an hour in Powell’s Books…the only place I knew I wanted to visit when I found out I was traveling to Portland.  I thought that lingering among the rows and rows of beautiful books would distract my mind somehow…lure it away from the nagging feeling that I’d had over the last few days.  It was that same feeling that was keeping me from sleeping at night and that had me walking for an hour and half every morning while everyone else was still just opening their eyes.  I thought the books would help.  I thought that being away would help.  I thought that watching a city full of people I didn’t know would help.  But it didn’t.  So I surrendered to the heat…to my aching shoulders…and to my restless soul.  I found a place to put down my bags and – hopefully – also my thoughts.  A place to sort through the mess that had been created inside of me and attempt to bring some balance to this sense of unease.  That was then.

This is now…nearly four years later…still sorting through the aftermath…

Two days earlier, I had woken up before the sun.  There was dew that had settled all over everything and though jet-lagged and exhausted…I was ready for the day.  After finding some much needed coffee, I joined a room with sixty other creatives as we prepared for a shift in perspective…a shift in reality…a shift in ourselves.

Not more than twenty minutes later…a person that I didn’t know stood before me and uttered words that have haunted me ever since…

She stood silently at first…intensely.  She spun her ring around between her fingers…with a look in her eyes that told you that something important was about to happen next.  And then she said it…

“If no one has ever told you this before…please allow me to be the first; it is not your lot in life to struggle.”

It is NOT your lot in life to struggle.

The words knocked the wind right out of me.  I went to write them down…but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.  I went to go talk to her…but the tears wouldn’t stop falling.

I never realized it – until that moment – but I did, in fact, believe it was my lot in life to struggle.  I didn’t consciously know it…but I had emotionally lived it.

I believed that we had to struggle for our happiness…struggle for our futures…and most of all, struggle for our relationships. I knew the struggle…I felt the struggle…I conquered the struggle.

But it is NOT your lot in life to struggle.

Because the truth is that life is not a struggle.  WE struggle.  We struggle with each other…we struggle with God…we struggle with ourselves.  We struggle for control…we struggle for validation…we struggle to be loved.  But life is not the struggle…we are.

If only we could stop.  If only we could let go.

Because guess what?

It’s okay.

It’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to just breathe. It’s okay to be loved.

It’s okay to let go.

When I think back to that Thursday afternoon, in those unfamiliar streets…I can still remember the feel of the air and the smell of the coffee.  I can still feel the ache in my shoulders and the pain in my heart.  I also remember taking a deep breath…closing my eyes…and thinking to myself…”she’s right”.

And she was right…

It is not my lot in life to struggle.

And it’s not yours either.

This is what I’m holding onto now…in the midst letting go.

photo credit // www.lastfortypercent.com

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  1. Brandy Wells Garcia says:

    That is so good!

  2. Sara H Rohrbach says:

    This is so very, very true.

  3. Emilie Elizabeth Gagne says:

    Amen ❤️ & thanks.

    Love you xo

  4. Eden and Her Happy says:

    It’s amazing every time you put words on paper!

  5. Jessica Hudson Reece says:

    Again, thank you for sharing your life… Your gift.

  6. Tricia Van Handel says:

    Words never rang truer! So true and so good

  7. Kathleen Gavagan-Weinzierl says:

    Love this!!!

  8. Cindy Allen says:

    Yes

  9. Sarah Hooper says:

    Hard to read your post through tears.. I simply cannot express how amazingly talented you are in bringing truth to suffering people. Please never stop writing! It is fresh air we all need to breathe in!

  10. Dawn Alexander says:

    Just…Wo-ow!

  11. Debbie Laney says:

    your story is so familiar to me… I’m trying to learn to ” not struggle “

  12. Marie-Claude Charland says:

    Thank you. I’ve read it, heard beffore. But not really, it didn’t penetrate. Tonight, you are my lady with the ring.

  13. Robin says:

    I’ve been tearing down my layers of armor, and today as I stand for a few moments completely exposed I wondered how amazing this feels and how can I sustain this? The amazing universe hear my question and I was guided to your beautiful words. I feel like a baby bird learning to strengthen her wings so that she may take flight. And to read your beautiful words I feel the muscles strengthen so maybe today I will keep hat Amir on the flooram so grateful the

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