“But I love him.”
"So love him.”
“But I miss him.”
“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, and then drop it... But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot—a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with that doorway? It will rush in—God will rush in—and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.”
“But I wish me and David could—” He cuts me off. “See, now that’s your problem. You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”
Dialogue between Liz and her friend, David from Texas, in Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love
There's something we lovely, marvelous humans suck at, terribly. Our humanity is sealed up in an unhappiness founded in our inability to simply let go, and move on. We're afraid to go ahead, to let ourselves, our personality, our identity evolve and grow.
We're often left wondering, wishing.
I love the bike. I miss the bike. I miss the pride I felt after completely exhausting myself while being the only girl to hang on with a bunch of boys. I long for the pleasure of watching the miles pile up, time spent in sweet pleasure, spinning up my life, pedal stroke by pedal stroke. But listen... the bike and I were in a bad romance last year. And I know that now.
Dear Gaga: I get it.
I miss it. But I also know that's not where I am right now. My location is someplace else, off the Island of Misfit Kids on Bikes, of the grid that I've come to know as my life. I've spent so much time in the past twelve months, wearing my wishbone where my backbone belongs, wishing I was still fast, still wanting to fight whatever the hell actually even happened. But isn't that part of my problem anyway? Chasing something, instead of letting it organically happen?
I'm still spending time on the bike here and there. But I don't know if I can ever have that level of dedication again. To the bike, or to anything else, other than the people I love, for that matter.
I still love it. I miss it. And that is fine. Those feelings are fine... they don't have to be wrapped up in this angsty, overwhelming, painful longing. I want to enjoy where I am. It's beautiful. It's where I do things like this.
We can't cling to what we've always done, especially as our awareness grows. That goes for our personal lives, and the world around us. Tradition does not inherently make anything right. We have to let ourselves grow. We have to stop stuffing ourselves into whatever doesn't fit us anymore, to let our hearts, minds, and (oy vey) sometimes even our bodies, expand, evolve, and change, hopefully for the better.
Open the door. Open the door to growth, to improvement. Let your feelings flow and be felt, but don't allow them to keep you where you are, wishing for something that isn't yours any longer.
