I’m in the process of sorting out my computer. My storage space is running out, so I’m trying to see what I have to get rid of to make more space. In my head this is a fairly straightforward project: back up what’s necessary, delete what’s unnecessary, re-name, re-organize, update, refresh. What I’m not counting on is the emotional baggage that comes with it. The parts of me I’ve forgotten reside here, that I now have to confront.

The music I stopped listening to aeons ago and can’t bring myself to delete.

The movies I thought I would watch on the plane or the train or whatever but haven’t even downloaded from ICloud storage.

The papers and readings I’ve kept from High School and University in case I ever spontaneously need notes on the Iranian Revolution, a recap of Heidegger’s Being and Nothingness, or an analysis of Muhammad in Christianity (don’t ask).

The photos of people I no longer see or talk to.

The City Guides I always told myself I wanted to complete and type out nicely, but never really worked on.

The reflections, writings, and notes from every phase of my life.

The embarrassing videos of myself and my friends, in some ancient video quality that is barely watchable.

The idea document.

I think a part of living is making plans for what we imagine the “idealized” version of ourselves to be. We imagine that, at some point in our lives, we will get it all together and all the threads will come together to create a perfect whole.That things will all make sense, like a well-crafted story, or an exquisitely balanced bookshelf. I haven’t lived very long, but I’m a hundred percent certain that that point will never happen until we die. There will always be something we leave unfinished. Something we have not done well… enough. Something we “failed” at. Whether it’s the dishes in the sink since breakfast, or the brief we sent the client a couple of days late, something is bound to haunt us in the end. 

Living is changing. It’s evolving. It’s “growing”, even when growing can sometimes feel like moving backwards or not moving at all. Someone once told me: “You can’t have everything at the same time,” and I thought it was the most depressing sentence I’d ever heard. “What a sad way to look at life,” I remember thinking. “What drives you forward, then?”. As I grow older, I am realizing that, though I still hate the way she phrased it, I am starting to understand the sentiment behind that saying more and more. Living is learning to be okay with loss. It’s learning to let go of things that no longer serve you. And maybe, eventually, it is also learning to accept that “everything” is just what exists now.

Personally, I have trouble looking at past versions of myself. I always believe that I used to be better. That I was smarter, fitter, more ambitious, able to multitask more, stronger, more intuitive, sexier, more grounded, whatever. When I look at a paper I wrote during my Masters, or an old email I sent someone at work (you know, on the rare occasions I actually clean out my inbox), I don’t think “wow, I did that”, I think “wow, I can never do that again”. There is a part of me that puts a lock on things once they have been “completed”, thereby preserving them as they were (for better, or worse), forever. And no matter how much I try, I seem to not be able to really move on from there. I have a folder in my documents titled “The Lesson” about someone I briefly dated years ago. It’s filled with notes from our correspondence, reflections, and interactions. I once thought that I would make a short story out of them or a book or something, but now they’re just gathering dust on my computer. And it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve often gone back to the file thinking “now I’ve got the angle” attempting to bring it all together/bring it all to life, but nothing meaningful ever really comes out. So, when do I just call it quits and decide that its time has passed?  How often should we clean up our past selves?  

I recently started a job. It’s in an industry I’m interested in exploring, and quite rewarding. But, ever since I started it, I feel like my personality has split into two or something. There’s the me that I used to be before I took a break from work and got sick: hard-working, ambitious(ish), family and friends-oriented, blabla… and there’s the me that I discovered living alone in New York and then going through my health crisis: reflective, deeper, likely to condemn all and run, or maybe, to put it more elegantly, only desiring heart connections and experiences.I find it hard to be both of those mes at the same time. If I’m the first person, I’m accommodating, I listen, respond, and attempt to manage things, I take on responsibility and say “yes” more than “no”. If I’m the second person, I make time for myself (before anything), I listen to my body, and I try to let my health and wellbeing lead my day. I feel like I want to be the second person most of the time (if not all the time), but life, society, and my own self, seem to constantly re-confront me with the first one.

There is a belief that I had, that many people I have talked to seem to have, that letting go of a part of yourself means that that part was somehow “wrong” and this new part, that has come in its place, is somehow “right”. Shame is attached to the letting go process, and so the part that you want to let go of, sticks to you instead. It haunts you. How did I ever do that? Or, what if I end up that way again?  And yet, if we look at it truthfully, if we discard the judgement, we discover that we would never be who we are now without that part. Some versions of us (if not all) are meant to be teachers. 

I know a girl who would lose herself in whatever man she was dating. She would change friend groups, interests, and even personal taste to accommodate what she thought was the (new) “love of her life”. After years of being worn out by transformation after transformation, she decided to dig deep and identify the source of the pattern— the wound in her that needed healing. It wasn’t a smooth ride, but the next version that came out of her, after this undertaking, was perhaps the truest, most natural iiteration of her I had ever seen. Now, she is in a really healthy relationship, with a clear view of what she wants out of life, and she credits this entirely to her past. “I don’t think everyone needs to learn the way that I did, but when you’ve viscerally gone through something, you don’t have to ‘what if’ the scenario anymore, the answer is right there. In your body. In your memories. Every version of you exists to teach you something, you just have to be willing to learn the lesson.”

Incidentally, I was listening to the We Can Do Hard Things podcast a few months ago— the episode with Alanis Morisette (if you’re wondering)— and something Glennon said really seized me and kind of made me stop in my tracks: “All of our parts are made for loving”, she explained to Abby and Sister, digging into the topic of the emotions we shun and the conclusions we draw about ourselves. I’ve heard this phrase uttered a hundred different times by psychologists, writers, theists (is that what you call spiritual people?) even performed live for me by my therapist, using different chairs to represent the different parts of me (adult self, critical self, vulnerable child…etc.) but somehow it never really struck me as true. How could the part of me that wants to down 5 shots of vodka in order to go out (you know, once upon a time), or procrastinate on a paper until the day it’s due, be okay? How could I not do everything in my power to quelch it? How could I learn to accept it…to live with it?

In Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves (an incredibly insightful book for all of those inclined) there is a chapter called Hunting: When the Heart is a Lonely Hunter. It talks about the myth of the Skeleton Woman and the Life/Death/Life nature of love (each chapter in the book covers a different story/myth/fairytale and dissects it). Estes proclaims:

“A part of every woman and every man resists knowing that in all love relationships Death must have her share. We pretend we can love without our illusions about love dying, pretend we can go on without our superficial expectations dying, pretend we can progress and that our favourite flushes and rushes will never die. But in love, psychically, everything becomes picked apart, everything… What, dies? Illusion dies, expectations die, greed for having it all, for wanting to have all be beautiful only, all this dies. Because love always causes a descent into the Death nature, we can see why it takes abundant self-power and soulfulness to make that commitment.”

 This idea of a cycle of Life/Death/Life (or love/death/rebirth) affected me deeply. I used to think that seasons are an example of Life/Death/Life, or even a woman’s menstrual cycle, but I had never thought about this model in terms of a continuous relationship, especially one that could have…with myself.

In my opening post to you guys one of the questions I posed (and thereby promised to address) and the question that this piece seeks to discuss, in a way, is: “What parts of ourselves are we holding on to, even when they’re no longer in style?” Although I initially imagined I would tackle this idea using the theme of continuous self-development, what I have found instead, is that a lot of what surrounds this question has to do with love and shame. With the discarding itself, instead of the discarded. So, a better question I might have posed, could have been: “What parts of ourselves are we ashamed of, and how do we let them go?”

There is an Islamic interpretation that I came across in a book I was reading recently (a translation of a poem by Imam Maulud), that proclaims that “shame” is not the problem, but the indicator that there is a problem. That our dissatisfaction with ourselves, or with a part/version/whatever of ourselves, is actually what allows us to dig deeper and hopefully find the learning that makes us grow, spiritually. “Shame and dissatisfaction”— as long as it does not morph into low self-esteem— “can be moral lifesavers”.

Thus, I believe that “letting go” does not mean “chopping off”. It does not mean “moving on”, without dwelling on the why and the how. It means examining. It means integrating. It means renewing. It means honouring that all versions of you are/were/and will always be trying to do right by you in the best way they know how. That ultimately, you need to let go… with love (not hate). But also, that the shame we sometimes feel may be a good thing, because it is trying to point us in the right direction. In effect, it means honouring that there is a Life/Death/Life cycle inherent in everything, including ourselves.

So, no, I guess I will not delete that folder titled “The Lesson”…yet. I will also attempt to get back to the City Guides and remember why I wanted to write them in the first place. As for “Muhammad in Christianity”, yea that’s going in the bin. 1) Because there is no such thing, and 2) Because it’s been 16 years. Khalas baa.

Here for the journey,

Girl With One Earring