Let It Go

When I was a little girl I thought I understood perfectly what my mother meant when she said life’s not fair. We were poor and endured misfortunes. But in retrospect I don’t recollect that we suffered that much, nor that I really minded my friends were better off.

I was probably cushioned by the knowledge that there were many who had far less than us and I suspect I understood the maxim: God helps those who help themselves. I never doubted that I could and would help myself; and I now see that life had been unfairly balanced - in my favour - because I had what it took to manage life’s vicissitudes and to succeed.

This philosophy served me well for many years. I even came up smiling when I was diagnosed with MS shortly after my fortieth birthday. Compared to many I was lucky: the progress of my illness was slow, I had a warm and caring husband, and we didn’t want for anything.

Fifty is the New Forty!

I wonder if I hadn’t been looking at life through rose-tinted spectacles. As I approached my fiftieth birthday two things hit home. Firstly I began to really mind that other people had a lot more than me and to realise it was unlikely – given my age and circumstances – that I’d improve on what I now perceived as an unsatisfactory lot. I had fancied I was destined to be special, and that everything comes to those who wait. I had been labouring under a misapprehension.

Secondly I saw, as if for the first time, what old age can mean. I encountered many elderly people who were depressed, uncomfortable and frightened. As I witnessed minds and bodies falling apart I began to appreciate how unpleasant the end of life and the process of dying might be.

I see now these observations were not unconnected. Further, that each of the crises which occur every ten years or so throughout our adult life come with attendant lessons, or – as Hamblin says – opportunities. The mid-life crisis, which for some doesn’t kick in until they approach retirement can seem particularly poignant: the best years are past and the rest is downhill all the way.

I came to myself

I began to pray for my own discovery: that I cease to be what I had always thought I wanted to be and find myself anew, in the Divine.

When, like the Prodigal Son I came to my senses, it ceased to matter that I would never see some places or do some things. I could let that go. But it did matter that I had been guilty of the sin of an unlived life: I had failed to enjoy the beauty of the earth because I had taken it too much for granted whilst bogged down by my petty anxieties. And I repented that I had sometimes loved in a false way and in too short a measure. In the words of Simone Weil, I had ‘turned my gaze in the wrong direction.’

I could have avoided all this, and much more. I had failed to pay attention to the details of my life. And I had allowed myself to be seduced by the glamour of this world: by the notion that I could copy someone else’s success (far easier to do that than to risk being true to myself).

My Hearts’ Desire

Thomas Merton maintains that intense busy-ness and the pursuit of a false self go hand in hand. Frantic self-expression had indeed become synonymous with my self-assertion - the opposite of loving behaviour. I had created an increasingly false self and become less able to love with a pure heart. In the midst of life I had forgotten about the need to seek out the agenda of my life.

To discover the agenda of our lives - which is set neither by others nor ourselves, but by the Divine – is a process that takes a whole lifetime. Confusion, uncertainty and doubt, which are a natural part of life, will prevail to distract us. But, depending on what we desire most in this life (and beyond it), our souls will either grow and blossom or shrivel up.

Our task is to discriminate amongst our longings and attachments and, if appropriate, to let go. For what we desire most in this life - what we really want and long for – shapes and judges us.

Accepted by Love

Whilst looking the other way I had become defined and tormented by what I desired and possessed. In so doing I had become blind to the infinite worth of who I am. I no longer believed and trusted that I was loved and valued for myself. I didn’t see that I was accepted by Love; love which is tested and proved in our ability to let go: of seeming securities, possessions, of our loved ones and, ultimately of life itself.

Mary Oliver tells us that to live in the world we must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against our bones knowing that our own life depends on it; and, when the time comes, ‘to let it go, to let it go.’


The inspiration for this article came from Learning to Dance by Michael Mayne and Finding Sanctuary by Abbot Christopher Jamison