I came across this one day after I had a wonderful conversation with a close friend about some of these very things. I just had to share it here:
Letting Go
author unknown
To Let Go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.
To Let Go is not to cut myself off,
it is the realization I can't control another.
To Let Go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To Let Go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To Let Go is not to try to change or blame another,
it is to make the most of myself.
To Let Go is not to care for,
but to care about.
To Let Go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
To Let Go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To Let Go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To Let Go is not to be protective,
it is to permit another to face reality.
To Let Go is not to deny,
but to accept.
To Let Go is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To Let Go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes, and cherish myself in it.
To Let Go is not to criticize and regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To Let Go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.
To Let Go is to fear less,
and love more.
I want to share this poem because it has touched me so.
By Jen Abbas, an18-year-old child of divorce:
The Eruption
Divorce is like a trembling earthquake,
The world shakes, rumbling with rage,
And all the anger, guilt, and frustrations
That have been festering for so long
below the surface
Suddenly spew upward in an inferno of hate
or apathy.
At times the earth calms and you think the
turmoil is over,
Settled, stable, but then the cycle begins again,
Repeating, repeating, repeating.
You are weary, you want to rest,
And that is when you realize the shaking has
stopped,
But there is an eerie feeling lurking in the air.
You are hesitant to believe anything anymore,
You are so tired after struggling for so long,
And so you rest on the one solid patch of land,
Only to watch it split in two,
Two separate, distinct parts that will never
come together again.
Each new patch supports part of you,
And as you watch, they pull away.