I look at my life in slow motion sometimes, all the choices I’ve made and weird things that people have said or done to me that have fucked me up in some small way or large, a cascade of random sentences and moments and interactions and looks, an abstract timeline soaring through victory and then skidding through muddy humiliation, going nowhere in particular, nowhere predictable, nowhere comfortable, nowhere guaranteed. I just see an unwieldy, overloaded flatbed trailer of memories and hangups and hopes and dreams and fears, god, the fears, and that trailer is always rounding a sharp curve in slow motion, always just on the verge of toppling over and spilling that stuff everywhere, traffic whizzing by, horns honking, and all I can do is to hang on and keep throwing bailing wire over it, again and again, pulling it taut, throwing it over again, pulling it taut, in slow motion, wincing, my hands bleeding, hot tears of anger streaming down my face, but that shit will not be contained and it has nothing to do with my desire to contain it, to keep the road clear for everyone else. Gravity, and nature, and momentum, and an intermittently cruel Universe — all these things will conspire to bring it all down so why the tight grip, why the bleeding hands?
Who are the bleeding hands for?
Let go.
I struggle with the same thing. I used to look at life as a wild ride where I was the bucking bronco rider holding tight onto the reigns no matter how hard things got. As I’ve gotten older I see that maybe my life has a lot of concerns that I don’t need to be holding onto so strongly. I’m learning to let go. It’s a process.