When my dad died last year he was 74 and I was 37. I鈥檒l wait while you do the math.
My grieving process over the past year, in combination with the realization that this is probably one of the middle years of my life, has shown me how easy it is to let go of old (sometimes toxic) ways of being.
Letting go is not something I have ever been good at; I seem to cling voraciously to habit and routine, thinking that these patterns will keep me 鈥渟afe.鈥� It鈥檚 a fairly common cognitive bargaining tool. It鈥檚 also complete crap. Nothing can keep you safe from loss.
So this year, instead of adding a bunch of aspirational goals to my life in 2019, I鈥檝e made a list of all the things I鈥檝e let go of…with a sincere hope to add more.
Being an athlete. I played sports until college. Like many privileged people with leisure time and money, I鈥檝e joined gyms, taken classes, and bought expensive running shoes that gathered dust. Now I鈥檓 giving up on this idea for good. Not interested. My goal for this year is to walk my dog every day. Be able to shovel snow and rake leaves.
Focusing on what I eat. I have already spent too much of my short time on this green Earth pondering, agonizing, and calculating what to eat. It sounds silly, but thinking about the latest diet plans or health sensation is so ingrained in my cultural milieu, that professing my complete lack of interest feels counter cultural.
Volunteering for kid stuff. Working and playing volunteer hero mom is something I no longer do. I put in years of running bake sales and chaperoning trips when my son was young and I wasn鈥檛 working, but now I just can鈥檛. I will send in (store bought) cookies for a party or donate to a walk-a-thon, but no one gets my time.
Hanging on to sentimental objects. Seems like this would鈥檝e gone the other way after losing my dad. 聽But the fact is, I have learned that no physical object can offer comfort or solace to the loss of him. This realization offered relief. I鈥檓 not maintaining a museum to him or any other part of my life that is in the past. I鈥檓 living now. So a lot of things have been donated or just thrown in the trash.
These are just a few of the big ones. They all seem pretty mundane, but letting go of each has freed me up tremendously – in terms of time, money, and head space – to create space to consider how I actually want to spend the second half of my life.
Cynthia Ransley, MA (’15) is the Communications Coordinator for 海角乱伦.