Laundry List, Item 7: You can't have anything unless you let go of it.

The lyrics from U2's Dirty Day frequently sing through my thoughts at the moment:

You can hold onto something so tight, you've already lost it

This was the case for me with my marriage after the rough period started. Probably the only chance I had in enabling it to survive was to let go of it, radically and absolutely, as soon as the warning signs were there. Instead I fought, I begged, I clung, I debated. Eventually, after 3 months of grasping and 10 days of silence, I was able to come to terms with letting go.

By then it was too late for the marriage, but it was just in time for the rest of my life. I had a profound understanding that nothing lasts. That thinking that I can hold onto anything, onto something, is completely misguided. An illusion and a fallacy. 

Letting go of something does not guarantee that you will have it. However it is the only way to truly have anything. Because the things you end up having will be there because they choose to be there, and because there is an honest and integrity to them being there with you. 

I have less now, much less, than I did 12 months ago. I am in a partnership of 1. I earn less. My house has less things in it. I don't have a plan for the next 12 months. It seems in letting go of these things, I now have life. I can't remember ever being this happy.