Take a minute to watch the video that I linked above.
Letting go has always been a difficult task to undertake. I have moved 20+ times over the past 33 (as of Thursday) years. If you have been uprooted that many times, you understand when I say I have a habit of hanging on to a few things that remind me of places that I have called "home". I have a clothes pin doll that my mom kept on a shelf in our living room when we lived in Wisconsin. It now resides on the bookshelf in Afton's bedroom. I have the cedar jewelry box my dad made for my mom years ago that she moved from place to place and always kept on her dresser. I have a picture that my brother sent me for my 17th birthday of the San Francisco skyline and it has hung on a wall in every place I have lived since that birthday. I don't own much... But the things I do own have a lot of value. These are things I will never let go of.
With that said, with every move and every major change in my life, I have had to let go of something. During my divorce I let go of a lot. I let go of friendships that were the center of my life. I let go of pictures, Christmas decoration, clothes, furniture and years of memories. In order to move forward in a positive direction, those things needed to be let go of.
Letting go has and will always give me huge anxiety. What if I make the wrong decision?
Several months ago I made an extremely difficult decision to let go of a friendship that meant a lot to me. This was the friend I called every single day. We would solve all of our problems together. We talked about babies and our husbands and what our hopes and dreams were for the future. Unfortunately, mixed into the wonderfulness that was our friendship, there were conversations about our church and the way we raise our children and our role as women in our homes that were extremely dark and unsettling. For months I would think about the things she would tell me and I often found myself on the phone with my mom, picking apart the most recent "what???" Conversation.... And at the end of every chat with my mom or with Paul, I always had the same impression... "Let go of the friendship". I prayed that her feelings on certain topics would change...but they not only didn't change, they became more and more bizarre. Finally the day came when I knew what I needed to do and I let go of that friendship. I can honestly say I have felt a huge void since that day. I know that I made the right decision but I had always justified my friendship with her by saying "a friend that makes me uncomfortable is better than no friend". Unfortunately that was not the case. It has been a difficult void to fill.
In 2010 I married my sweet husband. I left Missouri and relocated to Virginia. I'll never forget a few weeks after our wedding, Paul had returned to work and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. I called my mom in tears and expressed how unhappy I was in Virginia (regardless of how incredibly happy I was being a newlywed). Virginia was so different than anything I had known. I'm a Midwestern girl. I love the mixture of green and wide open spaces. I have always felt very claustrophobic in Virginia. Soon after our wedding, Paul and I began talking about the idea of
moving out west when he retired. That conversation soon turned to "if we want to do it in 30 years, why not now?" All of a sudden our plans for the future changed and I was overjoyed at the idea of leaving Virginia and once again enjoying open spaces! Over the past 6 years, we have flown Paul out west several times for interviews and every single time, it did not work out. Throughout the process of trying to relocate our family, I watched my sister graduate from college and accept a job in Utah. I then watched my mom retire from teaching in Missouri and relocate to Utah. I was witnessing my dreams come to pass in other people's lives. I took it as a sign though that we were destined to be out there. We were both sure of it... And yet, every time we tried, the answer was no.
You are probably wondering what this has to do with "letting go"... Well, over the past year, I have been holding onto this dream. I see my mom, sister and niece living so damn far away and it makes me physically ill at times. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for understanding and have yet to feel like my prayers are being heard. I see the beautiful relationship that my daughter has with my mom and it breaks my heart to know my mom will not be there for all of Afton's concerts, sporting events, etc. and it makes me extremely angry that I am so limited in how often I will see Lily.
I have come to realize that I will be on VA until I die or until Jesus comes... Whichever comes first. With that realization comes the unfortunate reality that I have to let go of this dream that I have been so tightly holding onto of moving to Utah and being within a reasonable driving distance of the women who are so important to me. I HAVE to let go of that dream and begin focusing on establishing roots in VA. I have felt extremely alone over the past year. My life as a SAH mom consists of keeping my soon to be toddler alive & housework... Wash, rinse, repeat... I have never been one to beg someone to be my friend and bc of that I have very few friends. I have watched myself slip into a terrible funk and as I have watched this dream of ours slip further and further away, I have become more and more angry. I have been angry with myself and angry with God.
The video I posted gave me a little piece of hope. I can no longer live in this constant sadness, I cannot mourn over the fact that my favorite people live so far away. It's amazing how depression can affect your day to day life. At night I battle insomnia (12:45 am right now), during the day I am so exhausted I cannot function. My mind feels so cluttered with anger and destructive thoughts, I have been having bad chest pains and I feel like I have 1 leg stuck to the floor and I do nothing but walk in a circle.
I'm thankful for FaceTime. I'm thankful I get to "see" my family as often as I want. I'm thankful half of my family is within a 1 day drive and the other half is a 1/2 day flight away.
I was recently counseled that sometimes you need to go through life having blind faith.... So, that's what I'm doing. I'm going through life with blind faith that we are in VA for some reason and that I will be able to fill the voids that I currently have in my life. I KNOW that God loves me... Even if I don't always feel it and I KNOW I am blessed to have a husband who loves me and who truly looks forward to coming home every day to Afton and me.
Moving on (it will be a slow process) and letting go (no matter how angry it makes me).
EQ
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