Letting go doesn't equal burial!

Aug. 5, 2015

Today I’m grateful for the good friends who have crossed my path and especially for those who have come into my life and stayed here. Truly, “living” becomes “being” when your heart connects with another’s, and you give and share and grow because of it. Hard times are doable with a good friend to help bear the burden; ordinary days become bright when you feel loved; and I’m pretty sure heaven is made of those good times when more hearts than your own share an experience.

I do like change – as long as I initiate it! When I connect with someone who becomes a friend, I take it hard when they leave me standing there on the stage of life like a lone actor trying to ad lib lines. A few friends have betrayed me, and I carry around resentment and anger like a backpack full of rocks. Many more have simply read their lines at the appropriate time in my drama and then moved to the wings. For those, I carry around sadness and maybe a little anger, questioning why God would give me good friends who become part of my soul and leave a gaping hole when they fade away.

Well, here’s what a lighter Me thinks. God does give us people who fill a particular purpose at a particular time. Or maybe we fill a particular purpose for them at a specific time. He knows some few of those people we will need for the duration, and those soul mates stay with us no matter to what ends of the earth either of us move. No matter how long they are with us, they are our friends. No past tense. I thank God for sending them to help me and enrich my life, and I pray every day for them, that they are well and happy and that they always have happy thoughts of the times we shared. Instead of mourning previously perceived holes, I try to imagine a rich, lovely fabric with some patches where certain friends wove a small unique pattern into the continuous weft of my life.

Now, betrayals are a little harder. We learn lessons from every experience and every person we encounter. If someone hurts me – or if I allow them to hurt me – the only way I can empty that load of rocks and move toward forgiveness is to think of what that person taught me, and understand that in the traffic jam of life, sometimes we’re going to collide and get injured. If a person hurts me purposely, that’s their choice, and I can’t fully know all that influenced their actions. I have the choice to let go and move on. (Plot twist!)

There are some people on my stage who I didn’t invite to be there, and I wish they would move to someone else’s stage! It’s harder to let go of people who irritate or purposely hurt you over and over and who are always in your face. Here’s the imagery I’ve tried the last few days, and it helps a little; I think it will take lots of practice before it really sticks and becomes permanent:

I imagine myself in a hot-air balloon floating upward. The people who are weighing me down are clinging to the basket, but as I will myself upward, they lose their grip and float (no, I’m not mean enough to let them crash!) to the ground, and I continue upward, floating above them – and the angst they cause me.  

And then there are the people - a small, precious group - who have been on the stage for most of my life, who have proved over the long-term to be absolutely loyal, who love me in spite of my humanness, on whom I can count no matter what. Some are family, some are friends who pick up a conversation after months or years without skipping a beat. The thing is, they are always there, and today, my smile is because of them!