When I finally commit to writing something, I end up scrapping or shelving it more than one out of every ten times.
That ratio has actually been climbing.
It reminds me that the braggable stuff in life is only a part of it.
It feels like some wisdom received from experience, that says: You don’t have to always get it right. You don’t have to always show up. You don’t have to always be on.
And perhaps most importantly, a wisdom that says: You’re allowed to walk away.
“Sunk-Cost Bias” says “You’ve made it this far, you’ve worked this hard, you’ve invested this much–don’t let it go!”
I’ve saved everything artistic from my childhood. Every shitty drawing. Every angsty journal. I’m a human, and I’m addicted to holding on.
For Christmas one year, Lyssi got me a “Buddha Board.” It was a way to learn how to practice the opposite. You draw something unique–something literally once-in-a-lifetime–and in a few seconds it fades away and is gone.
What are you desperately holding onto, something you’ve “committed” to, spent time on, felt dependent on, that you may need to let go?
It’s okay to let go.
It’s okay to scrap things.
It’s okay to shelve things.
It’s okay to “fail” at things.
You’re still here.
Some of the biggest, baddest, coolest, powerfulest posts I’ve written are sitting in that drafts folder and probably always will be. They may have been published if they belonged to someone else, but they belonged to me, and I found that even the loud, shiny ones sometimes just . . . were not truly me.
Even the good stuff, the big stuff, the wow stuff . . . is sometimes the stuff, when you listen deep down, that your heart and body tell you is not yours.
And you can hold on, and just be you-ish.
Or you can let go.
And if there’s something you’re afraid of letting go because, you just don’t know, maybe it’s actually where your real self hides–it will find its way back. You don’t have to delete the drafts and swear them off. Just be able to say, “At least not today . . .”
The you-stuff doesn’t have to be held tightly. You can let go of it and find that it just naturally stays with you.
It’s the stuff you’re holding onto because you know if you didn’t hold on so damn tightly it wouldn’t be there anymore . . . that’s the stuff that maybe it’s time to let go of.
When I first started writing, I had a very business-training-y feel to my posts. “Professional.” Later I peppered in a little emotion and it started to feel perhaps more self-help-esque. Vulnerable periods. Vague, fabley periods. Times where I was pretty sure I was just trying to write like Neil Gaiman (whether or not I succeeded, don’t bother letting me know, if it’s an illusion it’s a happy one). It would even be fair to call a few of my posts “emo.”
Point is–I change.
And you change.
And as we change, stuff that used to just float effortlessly by our side starts to drift away. Sometimes we reach out and desperately cling to it in denial, slowly and subconsciously increasing our level of can’t-keep-this-lie-up until we’re completely lost. But sometimes we listen to the wisdom from deep in our heart, or maybe our gut, that says “let it be what it is, stop clinging.”
And on the other hand as we change, stuff that we once courageously let float away . . . floats back. One day I’m going to finish or maybe re-write that draft about the affect of growing up in a conservative evangelical “reformed” church. Turns out it wasn’t meant to be last September, and it’s still not today, but I think I can sense it drifting toward me again. I guess what I mean to say is, if you’re afraid of letting go of a good thing you have, don’t be afraid. You know you. You’ll let it back in if it belongs with you again.
I sort of love the Drafts folder. It’s a really powerful reminder that life isn’t Instagram. That humans, as magical as they are, aren’t really magical. That you literally will not get it right a thousand times, and it doesn’t matter.
And that you are always, always, always allowed to let the fuck go.
~
:)
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