The Past Is Hard To Let Go Of, But Our Happiness Demands It

His house sat at the top of a gentle rolling hill, the punctuation mark at the end of a long and curving driveway.

Two years ago, you’d be sure to find him sitting on the front porch, dog by his side, wagging her tail to the point of nearly falling off, anticipating our eminent arrival. It was strange to think that someone else was living in my dad’s house now. That someone else was calling it their home.

From the exterior, not much had changed. A tree or two were gone from the back yard, the ones that had rotted from the inside out. We’d always talked about getting rid of them but had never gotten around to it. The lilac bushes in front still stood at attention, their overpowering scent wafting through the air. Our neighbor was out in his yard like always and while he moved a bit slower and had acquired a few more gray hairs, his patterns were unchanged.

With all that had occurred the past two years, you’d think things should’ve changed more dramatically.

But the sun still beat down on the roof, the dandelions still took over the lawn, and the fruit trees continued to produce more fruit than one family could ever eat. The bees hovered over the patches of clover, and the earth moved in a complete circle every twenty-four hours, just as it had before. Life, regardless of the magnitude of events that had transpired, continued. It was a stark reminder of how small and insignificant our individual experiences truly were.

Looking up the grassy hill into the back yard, I remembered childhood summers past. I’d wake up feeling the joy of hours yet to be filled only to bemoan bedtime, feeling as if I’d only just gotten started. Time seemed to both rush by and stand still, depending upon what I was paying attention to at the time.

?

To this day, I spend more time than I’d care to admit distracted, unaware of the time that’s passed, focused on solving “problems,” and making sense of things that probably don’t make sense in the first place. But when I can let go, even just a little, and allow things to unfold as they will, the resistance to what has passed falls away and the struggle is replaced with a feeling more akin to coming home. Sure there’s a certain kind of melancholy that comes with letting go, but in trying to recreate the better past, we miss out on opportunities to discover what lies ahead.

Everything in life runs it’s course at some point.

The old guard steps down and is swiftly replaced by a new younger guard, with a vision all their own as to what’s best. It’s only natural that there be a bit of mourning at these transitions. But it’s another thing completely to dwell on what was, or to deny the fact that nothing lasts forever. Perhaps the more optimistic person would say, “change is the only constant in life,” but both are saying the same thing. And while it’s natural to become nostalgic about good times past, there’s no point in trying to recreate something that’s met its natural conclusion.

Landscapes of the heart, much like the earth, evolve.

Throughout our lives we continue to weave a web of sorts around those places, people, and events that have shaped us. And even when they no longer remain in their tangible form, they are forever suspended in the very essence of who we’ve become. As our external world shakes and shifts, our inner landscape morphs just as dramatically. Who we were years, months, or even days ago, is different and ever evolving.

We’re forever layering our experiences, our revelations, and our inevitable shifts in thinking like piecing together a giant living lasagna.

And isn’t that what a life well lived is all about – boldly going into the unknown, our curiosity peaked, and our hearts open wide, willing to greet whatever comes our way? If I’ve learned anything from sustaining losses in life, it’s to be grateful for what I’ve had while I’ve had it, and to graciously release it when the time has come to let it go. No matter of clinging to the past has ever proven to end in happiness.

?

The greatest act of love – be it love for a living being, a moment in our lives, or even a former version of ourselves – is to let it go free and allow it to transform, honoring the way it’s been integrated into the fabric of our stories, while still allowing space for it’s own story to unfold.

It’s a rare thing to go through life unchanged by the people and experiences we encounter. That’s perhaps by design. But it’s futile to try and preserve something that’s inherently transient. Instead we can turn our attention towards the art of letting go so that we may willingly move into the unknown, allowing those whom we’ve loved to do the same.

It’s not an easy journey to appreciate endings as much as beginnings, but from what I’ve experienced, it’s far more profound.

It’s likely that I’ll never return to my dad’s house, and while that feels a bit heavy, it’s also the truth. Letting go of the more tangible pieces of my childhood is an awkward process, but one that is also necessary in order for me to pave the road towards a future lived in the now. As a wise person once said, “In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.”

“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.”

~ Deepak Chopra

[ Above photo by Maria Orlova from Pexels ]

---