A year (or two) of letting go

On this very cold day of our New Year, I ventured outside and promptly ran back indoors with visions of a snowy armageddon in Florida (yes I readily admit I’m a cold weather wimp).

Wrapped in the warmth of a heater and hot coffee, I took the opportunity to reflect back over the past year or so. It seems a recurring theme has been about letting go and releasing into a new life.

In order to realize a long time dream of wandering our land in a tiny camper, I let go of a dearly loved cabin on a river.

I also let go of all worldly possessions (save a few precious books!) to be able to fit in that 10’ x 6’ space — around 60 square feet.

When I hit the road, I found there was more letting go-ing here and there, including:

• letting go of an entire way of life, all the way down to the simple things I’d taken for granted including readily accessible water/sewer, electricity, food, and internet.

• letting go of the security and stability (and sanity!) of solid walls around me in a house and a familiar neighborhood.

• which meant letting go into never letting my guard down. Trusting my intuition (spidey sense!) has kept me out of unsafe areas and even saved my life by alerting to a hungry bear hunting me down in the woods when I didn’t hear it coming. Being wary all the time can be weary (pun intended!) but I’ve learned to be at peace with it because it’s a necessary trade off of nomad life.

• letting go of having friends, family, and familiar faces in close proximity. Even though I would still visit them from time to time, I would forever be a stranger roaming unfamiliar places.

• a constant letting go of new friends made along the way— it’s always short and sweet with a “see you later” as we continue wandering on separate paths.

• it also meant learning to let go of remnant social anxieties of interacting with unknown people in unknown places with occasional communication issues. All holdovers from an era of growing up as a deaf child in a hearing world.

• letting go of certainty and learning to embrace living an uncertain life in an uncertain world where I often have no idea where I would be the next day. It seems crazy but it’s also where unexpected magic lives in the art of surrendering — what I refer to as “going wherever the wind takes me!”

• letting go of preconceived notions of society, classes, and such. Wandering knows no boundaries — I’ve met all manner of people across a very wide spectrum. It’s where labels are shed — everyone is a human being with their own dreams, fears, struggles, and joys. The simple act of being kind and listening to each other’s stories is an act of diverse love…and healing.

• one of the most difficult parts of letting go for me is past loves. A few years ago a special soul blew my heart wide open. As hard as we tried to align our destinies, ultimately we had separate paths to walk. It took me a very long time to unwind from it. Yet it was also one of the biggest areas of growth. One was learning I didn’t have to stop loving her and others because our hearts have an infinite capacity for love…if we let it. And when we keep our hearts open, love will always be there — past, present, and future. Unconditional forever loves is a beautiful thing.

In closing, I remember the day I embarked on this new life with mixed feelings of excitement and a bit of fear/uncertainty of what I was getting myself into! But I knew deep down that these life changes (and series of letting go-ing) would bring radical and deep shifts in all manner of ways… Some not always easy but ultimately worthy. It was a matter of letting go into trust (with a dash of common sense).

The biggest shift of all? At long last after years and years of “settling” with life I finally found the purest, truest joy in wandering our land of beloved nature by following the mystical winds of my heart’s enlightenment.

(To think…If I never took that first big step of letting go into my dreams of wandering, I would have never found this unexpected great joy of my life. The idea of nearly missing out on this is altogether more scary than all the steps of letting go.)