I’m listening to songs I haven’t heard in fifteen years.

Thoughts and feelings and sensations from that era tumble past my consciousness.

And when I stretch out my hand, and run my fingertips under these waterfall memories, I feel such a curious mixture of laugh-out-loud joy, and crashing loss. I miss all the people I’ve loved. And I loved all the people.

Peter Rollins says that you have to let them go, those loves. He says, in order to remember them the best, in order to hold them in your heart in a way that’s healthy, you have to let them go. Set them free. Give up the ownership, and the pain, and the grudges, and the hurt.

So then, when you meet them again, or when you have to talk about them in the future, you won’t be pouring out your bitterness, anger, victim-ness. Instead you can speak open heartedly:
“I’m really sorry for my part in our distance..”
“I’m so proud of you…”
“I miss you, but you’d be proud of me..”
“I care about you, and want you to be happy..”
“I forgive you..”

Pete Rollins says, if you don’t do the work of letting them go, then you won’t be able to have that healthy encounter in the future.

I think he’s right, too. I can’t cup my hands and hold on to all these memories, as they cascade over me. It would be a life’s work to hold it all, and I’d never get anywhere myself.

So, I stand here with palms open, letting the nostalgias and losses splash through my fingers, releasing them to keep falling through space, eventually to hit a surface far below me with a roar, like each memory was worth celebrating, like the world is applauding.