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Letting Go
As we chug-chug along in life, making good, if not great progress toward goals we set, it occasionally happens that we get derailed. The derailment may happen all at once — a death of a close friend or family member, a financial setback, or even a pandemic, which destroys our routine and momentum. More often than not, though, I have found that when I get off-track, the derailment is more subtle and the lessons discovered along the way can be powerful.
Life-changing events for me in the past year totally decimated all my positive thoughts, actions, and focus on the healthy habits I struggled (and once succeeded) to embrace in the past five years, as well as my vision of consistent writing and publishing. It slowly receded into the darkness after a succession of events threw me back to my old habits and ways of thinking.
My spouse and my attempt to downsize our home now that children are grown and stably situated resulted in a downsize of about 200 square feet of house when we decided to blend our home with my in-laws. Approaching her nineties and with failing health, it became apparent that his mother was becoming less and less able to manage her health, her spouse’s health, and their large home in the Oregon wine country. Their…
