Friday, December 31, 2010

Love and Letting Go



As 2010 draws to a close I am pondering all the many things that have taken place in my life this past year. There have been joys beyond imagination and challenges unexpected and overwhelming. Through it all there has been one constant, love. I have always been surrounded by extraordinary love. By that I mean the kind of love that makes you feel extraordinary. I was born into this kind of love. I married this kind of love and gave birth to this love and I have always known how special and unusual this love is.

I have flourished and grown in this love. I have been guided by this love, nurtured by this love and shown in a million different ways that I am not only deserving of this love but I am this love. It is who I was born to be. It is who we are all born to be. When you are loved it gives you the opportunity to receive love. When you receive love it gives you the opportunity to give love. Simple, isn't it? It should be simple.

But we live in a world where love has been lost. It has been lost in every conceivable way. It has been covered in fear, withheld in anger, smothered in lies, breaking our hearts. I don't mean to focus on such things on the dawn of the New Year but this is what is on my mind. It is on my mind because of what I have learned in this year of joy and the falling away.

In the spring I will celebrate my 40th wedding anniversary with the boy I met when I was seventeen. How absolutely fascinating that this is the year that we have awakened to remember the most basic and important thing there is. We are remembering it as if love itself is being reborn. We are remembering it from the hearts of two beings who have fallen in love all over again. Not that we have ever fallen out of love but this discovery is about not just knowing how important love is but living it, every living, breathing moment.

In all our years together we have been through all the ups and downs that make up a marriage as you navigate your way through life, death, illness, money, work and parenting. This year however, as it has been for so many, has been the year of letting go. Letting go of an image of how and where and what our lives would be. Letting go of the dream you have been sold. Letting go of an illusion that is crumbling before all our eyes. Letting go of what you thought you had. Letting go of what you think you need. Letting go of it all.

And in this incredible letting go, something magnificent and priceless has been found. The shedding of the old has breathed new life into our hearts and into our days. The breath we now take is fresh and new and filled with infinite possibilities. Fear and apprehension have been replaced by sweetness and appreciation, by joy and by grace. A day does not go by that we don't laugh with abandon. A moment is not lost that we do not honor and cherish.

And this is what I have learned in the year of letting go...that trying to let go is not the same... as truly letting go. I have been trying to let go for years. Trying to let go of all kinds of things and let me tell you a secret, I didn't think I had it in me to truly let go, not even of some of the not so big things. But here I am letting go and finding a freedom I have never quite known.

So the letting go takes me right back to love. For love is the foundation for letting go. And letting go is the doorway to freedom. And of course it is about love of self because we can never truly let go of anything until we love ourselves.

Have I let go of all I need to let go of? I have not. But I have found what it feels like to truly let go of some really seemingly big things and all I can say is ... I wonder what took me so long.

Wishing you love and the joy and freedom of letting go in this New Year and always.