“How wild it was, to let it be” – Cheryl Strayed
Humbled by this words, I had to write about this book, Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Although it took me months to read, there was something that kept bringing me back. I had heard mixed reviews about the movie when I got started on the book, yet I was good and avoided the movie, yet put it on my Netflix cue to keep me motivated.
The power of this book didn’t strike me until the very last sentence. It wasn’t until that moment, those last 8 words, that I realized exactly why I was drawn to it. Cheryl Strayed may have written a memoir of her journey, but she also wrote a self-help book for me! Right after I read the acknowledgments, I quickly looked to see what category the book was. Yes, Biography, just like I expected. However, I think I just read a book that helped me figure out what I have emotionally been going through for a very long time. I know it was a memoir, biography of Cheryl Strayed’s journey. It is her story, and my mother is very much alive. I have never done heroin or cheated on my husband. I really don’t have much in common with her, other than the fact that we both lived in Minnesota for a portion of our lives.
Yet, I have been struggling to figure out how to let go of things in life I just have to let go of and let things that are never going to change just be. How? As Doris Day has sung to me for years “Que Sera Sera” but HOW? How do I just let it be.
When we moved to Maine, just about a year ago, I started to realize how to let one of my things, just be. I always had this burning desire to connect with nature on a deeper level. I was a nomad, as my mother once called me. A traveler, always planning her next great escape. I have been fortunate to have some incredible life experience that allowed me to experience life the way I wish to. But, taking my life to the woods, the rural woods, was a much bigger change than I have ever made before. I was accomplishing a big goal of no longer living to work, yet working to live with my partner by my side. I had to let go of the feeling of throwing my master’s degree away. I had to let go of the convenience of stores being 5 minutes away. I had to let go of a lot and each month I let it go a little more and love just letting our new lives just be.
However, the bigger things. The social obligations, the family obligations, the negativity we allow others to push on us. I knew how I was supposed to let that be, or so I thought. I tried. I failed. I almost gave up. But then, I read her words and I thought, how wild it would be to just let it be. Thank you, Cheryl Strayed for opening up a piece of my mind that had a swinging shutter for such a long time. That shutter is now propped open, strong and I am ready to just let it be. Are you?
Now time to watch the movie.