Day 5 - Let Go

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Advent calendar says...Christmas cracker.

If you let go of your end on a Christmas cracker, you will fail to activate its distinct noise, followed by a toy, a terrible joke and a funny paper crown.

If you let go of adolescent ideas about fulfillment and instead focus on taking what’s in front of you and making it into the best possible life, you won’t fail in that respect, or many others.

This year I let go of the idea that we would move to Canada, and that doing so would magically make life easier. Once I took this on board, I had to own up to the fact that I’ve been putting up a lot of resistance when it comes to adapting to my new home.

I’ve always considered myself to be spontaneous and open-minded, though in practice I’ve been anything but. Rather than embrace England and my new peers, I measured them against the friends and familiar landscapes I left behind, and let their perceived shortcomings brand a skull and crossbones into my heart. This slogan became the basis of a campaign, one that I sold to myself over and over again, about why I could never be happy here. After a while, it didn’t occur to me to wonder if this propaganda was true in any sense. It also didn’t occur to me that I might be depressed.

Anyway, long story short – I am now relaxing my death grip on the past and am determined to make the most of my time in England. I don’t know how long we’ll stay here for – it might only be another year or two, or it might be forever. Whatever we decide, what I don’t want is to look back on this time in our lives and wish that I hadn’t spent so much of it fighting invisible foes and plotting escape routes from imaginary dungeons. I’d like to visit the London dungeon one day. That could be fun.

Written in participation with #Reverb10

December 1st - One Word
December 2nd - Writing
December 3rd - Moment
December 4th - Wonder