The Art Of Letting In


Musings / Friday, August 26th, 2016

Have you ever had a day, which fills you with soul-shattering, mind-elevating epiphanies? Today is 8/26. It becomes reduced to 8/8. In Chinese numerology, 8 is considered the lucky number. The number itself is a double knot. And there were two knots today. It is symbolic because I felt every single knot in me dissolve. My About Me page perfectly encapsulates the complexes I bear within myself, the innumerable judgements I have borne, and the debilitating caprices that can form dredges around your soul.

“The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside,” Elsa sings in the beautiful Walt Disney movie, “Frozen.” And how frozen I had been! I had been nurturing a hurt for more than a year, treating badly my old friend who had been miserably loyal to me, who had seen the worst of me, and still was patient to bear those scars well. My “soul was spiraling in frozen fractals,” all the while, ringing in alternate bouts of hate, despair, anger, and contempt. “The past is in the past.” I heard those words in that song on Saturday while talking to my ex-boyfriend, and I thought I should remove the detritus of the past with another friend. I tried, it wasn’t to be, but today when that friend blocked me from all means of communication, I received the most blinding of epiphanies. This hatred, anger, from this friend was what I had given to my old friend last year and this year, and now it was being given to me in equal measure. It opened my eyes. We make mistakes. I have made so many. The rub of the green goes the wrong way. We say things we regret, and ply ourselves with remorse. None of that makes us bad. It makes us human, struggling as we are to grapple with the complexities of understanding others when you barely understand yourself. I have been human this year, bearing harshness and gentleness in almost perplexing equanimity. I have been unbearable, both in kindness and in breathtaking numbness, vacillating in extremes. I have been a puzzle to myself and a maze to others. I have been brutal, blunt, kind, gentle, harsh, warm, and cold.

What had I gained over the year in giving unhappiness to someone who loved me? I had lost the best and brightest part of myself and gained cynicism and words sharper than Occam’s Razor. I know I will be profoundly grateful for today because it made me realize that loyalty has been staring at me in the face, but I had been blinded, seeking only what I want, not what I already have. Life, I was told, is about letting go. I think it’s more than that. It’s what we let in. Do we let in anger and give it prime seats in our hearts? Do we let in peace instead? Do we let in forgiveness? Do we let in joy? Do we let in hatred? And for me, the biggest lesson: Do we let friendship in as it is without wanting to constrain it to any form or shape as I had thought ? Today, I decided to let in my old friend of 11 years and more. Or rather, I didn’t decide. Someone else in their action, directed by hurt and anger, decided it for me. And I feel a 100 knots dissolve in my mind and my heart. That friend who showed such anger and hatred to me today would never know how grateful I am, so thankful that I received this blessing. In blocking me, she unblocked myself. What a precious gift I received. Such a wonderful lesson she taught me! I wish to let in compassion, to let in understanding, to let in regret, to let in love. I wish to let in me because:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

If only we know that what we do to another, we do to ourselves. If only we let that thought in…

If only I had known this earlier…

So I let in Time today. And in walked in Awareness. Peace came along too, just for a lark. Lightness never felt unbearable.

3 Replies to “The Art Of Letting In”

  1. […] When my friend and I fell out last year, I felt like a part of me had been sliced away. This wasn’t a wound. It was an amputation. It’s funny how hindsight makes everything seem trivial. What we fight about is never worth the pain of losing a connection. Yet, it seemed important at that time. And time is ruthless, as Thomas Hardy would agree. “Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change,” he wrote. The fall-out stretched over months of bitterness. Time changed so many things during that period. A new job. New friends. New home. New everything. And then one day, another person, who until then had seemed like a trustworthy friend, chose to block me on Facebook and What’s App. I wrote about that here. […]

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