Letting go
I was on a walk last week in my neighborhood when I saw the saddest sight: two (still delicious smelling!) Christmas trees out by the sidewalk, awaiting their transport to what I hope is a big, happy Christmas tree farm in the sky.
It almost brought me to tears!
As you might remember from prior posts, fall and the Christmas season make up my favorite time of the year. So you can imagine that, in the dark and cold that is the winter season immediately following all that joy and light, it can be a little hard for me to let go of Christmas and adjust.
But ironically, this is what happens, all the time, in all facets of our lives.
Nothing is permanent, no matter how hard we love it or what we do to keep it alive and thriving. Things change, and we have to go along with it, whether voluntarily or kicking and screaming.
Some changes are cyclical – I have to say goodbye to Christmas vibes every January, but I get to welcome them back in late November. Other changes are semi-permanent – saying goodbye to my life in LA when I moved back to the bay area meant I can still revisit those memories any time I visit but I can never “go back” to that life, as life has now moved on. And of course, some changes are entirely permanent – like saying goodbye to a loved one when they move on from this world.
Our relationship to change is often a lot of resistance. And sometimes in that resistance we cling so hard to what is, invariably, always temporary to some degree, that we miss our chance to be totally present to the finite joy of the moment.
I don’t know if there is a “solve” to this…we will probably always experience some amount of resistance to change even while we stretch our muscles of presence and of gentle release when time is up. And maybe that’s good enough…
(But also…I salute any of you who still have lights and decorations up!!!)
Bye bye trees!!