LETTING GO

1/26/2026

I’ve been trying to do this one for –ever – it seems and I just can’t let it go. “IT” what is it?  “IT” being all the things that keep me from moving forward the way I want to, but I don’t mean fame and fortune, I mean without the stress, confusion and the pain my mind seems to always have buzzing, buzzing forever buzzing.  The moments of clarity don’t stick.  It’s not like a warm blanket you can always have around you it slips off on its own and you always have to be waking up and pulling it around you, like when you are sleeping.

I love drinking a good cup of coffee.  I sip the warmth and put the cup down and then write awhile then pick up the cup and sip again.

We have had three days of snow.  I wish now I had gone out and shoveled while it was coming down because this morning when I went out to shovel the driveway, the top layer had turned to ice and I had to break the ice before I could get the shovel into the soft under layer which was a foot deep. I looked at the banks of snow piled up against my driveway by the city plows and wondered who in the world worked out a deal for the city to come around and shovel the streets and send the snow into banks higher than the bank the falling snow created and leave it right in my front yard, my driveway. So now I am shoveling two banks of snow. I was so tired from the shoveling that I couldn’t, didn’t have time to get angry about this stupid method that showed a lack of thought about the taxpayer. Who came up with this idea?      

So why can’t I let go, let go of these kinds of thoughts.

Then along comes a cowboy truck pulling out of the gas station across from my house.  He pulls into the street, a middle aged, African American man looks out the window, asks if I need help. Of course, I am cautious but slightly desperate so I say yes!  I had become so exhausted from the down slope shovel that I was verging on desperation. I had been wondering if this was the time I would get the heart attack that they said people who shoveled snow at my age would get. Deep inside I had been begging myself to hold on as I pushed the shovel into the icy stuff. I wouldn’t need to go to the gym this week, I just needed to get this done. He jumped out of the truck and said he would help me. I asked how much he wanted to get the job done, he didn’t answer, he was just trying to be nice but I was too.  I wasn’t going to expect him to help without asking to give him some funds. He was glad to hear that and pulled his truck over to the side and parked then came over and took the shovel from my hands and started to shovel.  It turned out that his snow blower was in the shop. So he shoveled enough for the car to get out, then we made arrangements for him to come back with his snow blower. Whew! So now he’s back and I can hear the sound of the blower as he clears the yard.  I am relieved. I will not die of a heart attack from shoveling snow.

Exhausted I came inside the house explained to my husband what had transpired, and fell into my bed exhausted.  If it was possible to get old without losing the ability to do “stuff” I wouldn’t mind getting old but the damn process takes everything out of you. And no matter how good a shape you are in – you are getting old and are going to lose “IT” all.