Start where you are

I haven’t written in a while—all of the month of April, I now see—and here we are. I don’t wish I had done it, or regret not doing it, or anything. It just is what it is; it was what it was. And that makes it right.

I got quite sick during that time, the sickest I’ve ever been, at the end of which one friend reflected back to that I sounded so “raw,” that the whole experience sounded so raw. It was, in so many ways. And I am so grateful for my health, so grateful to be better. I also had my family in town for a week after that, which did wonders for my recovery and was so nice. Really so nice. It was the first time in a long time we were all able to be somewhere together (their lovely Airbnb) for a stretch of time and just enjoy each other’s company and being together. I miss having them here. And I am so grateful they were able to come. I also went to Coachella, and Napa, and said goodbye to my long-time manager at work and started on a new team and am preparing for a big move (it’s all already happening, as they say, as I’d say, as I remind myself) and a departure, a leave, from things as I know them right now. I am excited, it feels right, and it is all still a process. A process that sometimes calls for stillness, and other times calls for action, like selling and giving away almost everything I own: a literal practice in letting go.

I wanted to write here tonight and I didn’t know what to write, even with all the drafts saved here, even with all the notes in my phone like, “Live the width of your life,” which Bozoma Saint John shared in a talk at Google for International Women’s Day. Start where you are, came the quiet reminder. Yes, that. Start where you are, and right now, I am right here. Writing this, and letting it be it.

Ready to let this go

I returned home to my apartment in Venice last week with the urge to go through all of my belongings and minimize, minimize, scale back and lighten, the way that living out of a suitcase for 1.5 months in Puerto Rico and feeling like I had more than enough can do to a person.

I spent a lot of my time in Puerto Rico going on long, present walks around my aunt’s neighborhood in Guaynabo. I was fully immersed in those walk, feeling what was ready to be let go falling off me and what I needed to take in as nourishment from the tropical climate, with all my senses, in every sense, finding its way to me, seeping into me.

Finding myself ready, wanting to let go of physical things coincided with deciding I was ready to let go of certain stories, ideas and perceptions that I realized were starting to feel clunky, heavy or unnecessary. The most recent time someone asked me, meaning it as a compliment, “Why aren’t you married?” I didn’t feel the need, desire or defense to respond. Just a shrug and smile.

And then, as if my body was responding and saying it was on board with all of this letting go, I got super sick, an intense 24-hour stomach bug that humbles and comes as quickly as it goes and leaves me remembering, once again, how very lucky I am to have my every day health.

I don’t really know how else to end this, or what the ending is of continuing to let go, but I know I’m ready.

The more I let go, the more I let grow

“That’s it; that’s the post,” as the internet and those on it often say. Let go; let grow.

I’ve noticed that the more I continue to let go—even a little, even little by little, sometimes in a big, white-flag moment of surrender—of expectation, of control, of need, of attachment to outcome, of urgency, of not-enoughness, of perfection, the more I myself grow, the more I create a welcoming space for others to grow around me, and the more I allow for the organic development of whatever the moment is that I am in. And once I do it, it often feels like such exhilaration. Like sending a pass into the beyond, like jumping into the water below, like throwing up my hands on a ride.

Like a friend who loves to tend succulents said to me back when we were both managers, about caring for succulents, about management, about life: “The less you try to control and do, the better.”

So, I’m letting this post go, just as it is, and letting this writing and space grow, into whatever it is.

Letting go, letting grow.

Posted in inspiration of sharing this with a colleague-turned-friend, Hanna. 💐