seven years.

Notebooks filled to the brim. Kept in boxes for a while. By my bed for a while. In the basement and most recently in a bookshelf. Seven years of something I felt I absolutely had to hold on to. Something probalby invaluable.

 

Today I looked to see what there was that was so necessary to keep. Page up and down with draining negative thoughts. List after list of how I ought to improve myself and my life. Boring notes from boring classes at the university. I mean, really. Robin, really.  

And so I lit a candle, paused to gather and center myself. And then I started ripping. I did find a few things I want to keep. Scraps of words. Hastily jotted down ideas of images or songs. Those, I shall keep. The rest - into the fire.

It is so easy to be held back by the past. I sure have been for so long. I know there is a lot I need to let go of in order to be free. And I have refused to do anything about it. Partly because one of the things (paradoxically) I need to let go of is the idea of myself as living my life as an artist. In the sence you can do when you are twenty something. Letting art always come first. Have all the time in the world to explore and evolve. Work late hours at the theatre. Live on lettuce for a month. It is not going to happen. I didn't become the at least rather good actress I know I could have been. I didn't become the singer and songwriter I know lives in my heart somewhere. I didn't go to London to live a wilder life for a couple of years. I didn't travel the world to collect stories. And I am probably not going to do those things either. I need to let go of those dreams, grieve them. They only prevent me from being the person and artist I am now. It is scary to let go of something that you have treasured for so long. And trust that what rises from the ashes can also be great. And more true to what I am today.

What do you have to let go of in order to be true to who you are today?

Love!