Thoughts on acceptance vs. surrender
Week eleven after diagnosis.
Acceptance is the holding up of what feels, at times, an unbearable weight. “Here it is, and I must carry it.” On some days, I carry the weight with determination and fierceness. On other days, with resignation and grief. A leaden heaviness behind my eyes. Staunch, bracing, fortitude.
Surrender opens the clenched fist to discover that there is nothing to carry that isn’t already held. Surrender is the long, jagged exhale into gravity’s pull toward the center. Love holds all that is in equal measure. The stone in the river. Water flowing over the stone. The dipper walking both on stone and beneath water. All are held. Including me.
So what of all this fierce holding? All we really hold are our personal stories of what is good, what is bad, what should and should not be. None of these relates to the truth of what is, but rather, to our opinions about the stories we ourselves have created. Can I lighten my grip and let the stories be carried away in the flow of the stream? It requires no staunch, bracing fortitude. Only the courage to be held. Yet even that is a story. It requires nothing. I am held, regardless. And the river flows on.
Achingly true and beautiful, Kaylene. I read this once but I will read it many times, especially when I need it most. In these posts just as in other writings you’ve written or published, you are able to articulate what is beyond my reach, with greater patience and wisdom than I am capable. Thinking of you each time you post an update, and inbetween those times, as well.