the writergirl

Dear Reader,

Here is a truth: I’ve rewritten this post four times now. Writing at odd times of the day, sometimes at 1am and sometimes at 4pm in the middle of my shift. I steal however much time I can to try and pen down what it was the month of May has taught me, but always I find that what I’ve written doesn’t quite capture it. And so I erase, and I restart, and here I am for the fifth time trying again.

Look, this was initially a post about me choosing to fight against the Fate expected of me and casting that aside to pursue my own. I am my own Fate; I choose where to go. And it was a decent post, but I had this odd feeling that it wasn’t what I truly wanted to say. And so there I was, sitting in a park during my break at 6pm on a Thursday, finally realising what I actually wanted to talk about.

I don’t quite remember much of May except that it was ruled a lot by exhaustion and worrying and the incessant fear that I was running out of time. Running out of time for what, you ask? No clue. That’s another story for another day. As I grow closer to hitting 30 years old, I often find myself wondering about the path laid out before me, deconstructing my current career and the one I dream of, rethinking my friendships and the kind of relationships I want to cultivate, and most of all, examining my relationship with myself. Throughout all of it, an underlying theme started to rise until I could no longer ignore it: my tendency to want control.

It comes innately to me. A big part of that is due to my anxiety, where control equals to knowing what outcome to expect and therefore equals to safety. With control, anxiety surrenders. Without it, it panics. The other part—ah, well. That comes with being someone hungry to experience everything. I want, I yearn, and I am desperate for everything I have ever wanted, and I am so damn impatient. I want it all now, and I want to dictate how it comes to me.

We all know it doesn’t work that way though. Wanting is not enough, and time is a price we must all pay. To surrender is to accept the way things unfold, at times even in a better way. But it can be a hard thing to accept, and I spent majority of my May flickering through the days like a ghost weaving in and out of this plane of existence, unwilling but having no choice but to surrender to the law of the universe… which is all to say, it was either learning to surrender, or go crazy trying to control and hold on tightly to the things around me.

Here is another truth, though: I’m not very good at it. Not yet, anyway. Some days my mind catches on thoughts, on wants, and I yearn for things to happen a certain way so badly that it aches—victories and careers and relationships and milestones—but I cannot control any of it. I cannot control anyone or anything, only myself, and I know that. God, I know that. It’s become a mantra on the hardest days, when anxiety is loud or my impatience feels like the roiling sea or when my fear of never achieving my goals threatens to pull me under. I want and therefore it must but realistically it cannot. Perhaps not yet, perhaps not at all in the ways I expect. I must surrender, I must let go.

I’ve begun meditating again to mitigate some of that, and it’s been working. I’ve also been mindful to spot when I’ve begun the obsessive and controlling thoughts, and I take deep breaths to remind myself to release. Every part of it is a conscious decision I am making, from deliberately stopping the spiralling to the gentle reminder that I am on the right track and exactly where I’m meant to be. Time is not my enemy, I tell myself, and the only thing I can control is me.

It felt Herculean in the beginning. But I was forced to come to terms with this awful habit and how unwilling I was to put in the work I needed to learn. I would see my reflection in the mirror and think to myself: is this how you truly want to be? Is this kind of relationship what you want for yourself and the people around you? The need to control is unhealthy because it hinges on the need to assert the outcome, and we can never truly know the outcome of our lives. It’s futile, and the more you keep trying to tighten your hold on things the more you actually lose sight of what’s most important to you.

So yes, May was the month I learned the art of surrendering. Where I began to remind myself that the best outcomes are the ones where we relent and trust that things will work out for the best. And no, I’m not implying that you stop working hard for the things you want in life or cease taking responsibility for your own choices and decisions—what I’m trying to say is give your best to the people and the things that matter to you, and relinquish control of the outcomes. We cannot control what happens in the end. We can only do our best, and trust that we did what we could. To surrender is to trust that we are capable of handling the cards we’re dealt with, good or bad.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. I’m quite proud of how I’ve dealt with my ever-evolving self, but I also know this isn’t the end. As we grow older we must learn to accept the changes that come, or drown in the past version of ourselves that can no longer keep us afloat. But it isn’t so bad—despite the hard work, despite the pain of outgrowing who you were, I actually really like who I’m becoming. Yeah, I quite like her alot.

Until next time, Dear Reader. Here’s to change, and the art of surrendering.

Love,

the writergirl