Building up to letting go

Once again, Fall is upon us. If I were being “trite but clever”, I might write, “Fall is falling upon us”, but it really isn’t this year. It did sock my neighborhood pretty hard last week, with sudden cold temperatures and a shock of cold, pelting rain that was followed by three days of unrelenting chilly drizzle… but hey, that’s Fall. Now we’ve settled into a pleasant Autumnal pattern of mid-to-upper 60 degree sunny days with white puffy clouds, cold nights (my mom used to call it “good sleeping weather”), and soon-to-be-frosty mornings. The dog does his business much more quickly now, and I’m thinking, “oh, buddy… get ready. This is nothing.” If it stays like this for another month or two, I’ll be ok with it. :} Implicit in that comment, however, is the duality of doubt. More than doubt. Certainty: it won’t. Dammit. lol

So I’m getting ready for another milestone here: Mom and Dad are getting ready for their annual decampment to Florida for 6 months, and I’m frankly dreading it. Trying not to, trying to simply experience that feeling without judgement and let it go and all that good stuff, but I can’t help remembering that this is when it all started to fall apart last year. This is when it all… just… went south (so to speak). The beginning of my darkness.

Now, I’m in a completely different place emotionally and mentally. And spiritually. But I haven’t built a support system yet. Still looking for a job (about to take some new steps there, but that’s another story for another day).

However! I’m enjoying these last 3 weeks with them before they go, and I’m trying to build myself up. Get ready for it. Be positive. Tell myself that despite what happened this year, when Mom’s gone this time, she won’t get cancer again. Because that – something happening to them while they’re so far away – is my biggest fear. Ugh. OK. And if it does, well then. We’ll answer it when it comes. We’ll do what we must, when we must. (And I love how I am speaking as though I have companionship, because that makes the fear seem less.) I’ll do what I have to. What has to happen, will happen. Because there are no alternatives. I’ll just keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other.

Yup. So I need to make this “letting go” not about letting Mom and Dad go South, but about letting go of my fear of the future. It’s out there, and it’s unalterable. I can’t change it, I can’t fix it. I can prepare for it, but I refuse to live my life braced and in a bomb shelter. That’s horrible. So I’m going to try to shake the stiffness and the cramps out of my limbs, and just… let go.