JUST LET IT GO!!!!!!!

  Let me start by saying the phrase JUST LET IT GO! makes my blood boil. Not anger towards the person saying it but anger toward the phrase itself. It angers me because it sounds so easy to do but I have failed miserably at many attempts to do so.

     I have never been good with remembering dates of happenings such as birthdays etc and even worse when it comes to historical dates. For some reason my brain kicks such things out and will not let them sink in. I do think though my brain stores those dates someplace and seems to know when some sad or bad event happened because I get depressed or sad for no reason. I guess I should say for no reason I can think of at the time only to find out latter that someone passed on that date or some life changing event happened. Not so long ago I was in a depressed mood and could see no reason for it because my life seemed to be going well and all my T's were crossed so to speak. A few days later I realized it was an anniversary of the passing of my sister. Strange how I can not place the exact date if you asked me or remember her Birthday but my body and my mind seem to know and react accordingly. 

   I think in some ways I mentally blocked so much out or thought I did but like a computer once there it never truly leaves the system. They call it our subconscious mind and I picture it like a storage room filled with cardboard boxes stuffed to the rim and bulging at the sides with lids that will not stay on bursting at the seems.  Through the cobwebs and dust in the air I see that room filled with rows and rows of shelves piled to the ceiling with tons of those dusty boxes. Boxes filled with all of my blocked emotions and feelings that I never dealt with just waiting on those shelves looking as though they will collapse under the weight and often do. When those shelves give way and those dusty boxes come crashing down the emotions etc stored in them spew forth like a flood .

  I used to love Christmas time and all the wonder of it like a kid waiting for Santa to arrive. I loved the tree the shiny lights and gifts spending time with family and friends I just loved everything about the Holiday. For some reason over the years I had started to dread that time of year I thought maybe it was because I had lost that child like feeling or because I had stopped believing in Santa. I thought maybe it was because the Christmas Holiday had become more of a chore with trying to get the right gift for people only to feel disappointed when the look on their face showed I had truly missed the mark in my gift giving because I could see in their face they did not like what I had given them. Was it the blasting Christmas music that started a month before the Holiday? or maybe the bell ringers asking for donations in front of every store? was it that I could not afford to have the type Christmas the commercials on TV told me I should? I mulled over and over trying to figure out what had soured me on the Christmas Holiday. I would realize it was none of those things mentioned. I would come to know the answer one day while digging through some old photos.

   Back a few years ago and more than I care to admit I was in a great relationship and it seemed to be perfect in every way.  I felt I had met my soul mate and at last I could end my search for that person I could spend my life with. Well once again I had no clue and that relationship ended not long after Christmas of that year. I must have stored all that pain that I felt of loosing that person and attached it to the last good time I remembered with that person, and that was Christmas.  I may be wrong in my thinking but seeing that picture in my album brought back so many memories and also the knowledge I had not had a good Christmas since then.

   I am often told not to look back at the past and to just let it go. I have found that for me I must revisit the past and try to sort it out before I can so called LET IT GO!. Saying let it go and doing so are two different things. Saying it is easy but truly doing it, for me takes a lot of work mentally. I am and always have been a sensitive person, like a sponge I absorb not only my own pain I also have the habit of trying to absorb others pain and make it my own as if I did not have enough of my own to deal with. At one time in my life I thought it easier to deal with other peoples pain and ignore my own thus focusing my energy on them and not myself.  This made me feel good to help others but I neglected me and all those painful moments. I just brushed the pain aside HA! more like stored it away so it could come back to bight me in the ass at some future date.  

   I would come to learn this is called anniversary pain and can pop up for seemingly no reason at all. Set off by a date on the calendar in my mind that was hidden in that subconscious storage room tumbling off the shelf and springing forth to mess up my emotions. All that pain spewing forth all that pain I had hidden in my brain and blacked out with a mental Sharpie pen or so I thought. I try to be a happy person and even with all that I have been through in my life have succeeded in doing so but as I say now and then I get down and some times it is for an obvious reason. Obvious like I bounced a check or my car tire is flat all those everyday things that at times can just feel emotionally draining when they start to compile or I feel like they are. Those everyday problems I can understand and can pretty much deal with it is those deeper mental feelings or as they call it anniversary pain I have a problem with. The problem comes from the fact I did not deal with what ever it was at the time it happened, so it pops up biting me in the ass at some latter date. It is often very hard to track back through the mess that was my life and pinpoint just what thing place or person that I at the time did not deal with and filed away in my brain is come back to haunt me. 

   As I say I am often told to just let it go! but I have found for myself anyway I have to do a constant sort of mental battle with the past and work it out before I am able to JUST LET IT GO! I have come to the conclusion that those people that can just let it go must have had better skills than I in dealing with grief and pain and thus did not carry it with them mentally over the years.  Or maybe? they just say that, hoping it actually will work for them and in private they are doing battle with their own demons.  I have heard it said and have found it true that those who seem to have their shit together by all outward appearances are actually wearing a mask so as not to let anyone know just how messed up they are. I no longer hide the mess that is my life and admit to myself and others that I am not perfect and I am working on feeling OK with that fact. 

   Each day I am doing a sort of spring cleaning of that subconscious storage room taking down boxes to unburden the poor sagging shelves of some of the weight they try to hold. Dusting and clearing the cobwebs as I work taking each box down and sifting through its contents. It is a slow process but if I stop adding to the mess and keep working to clean away what already exists I may one day be able to see that room empty. I know I hear you laughing about that comment and believe me I laughed when I wrote it. But (Hope springs eternal)!

   So next time you catch yourself saying JUST LET IT GO! think about how much work that really takes for some of us.