Let It Go (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, our topic is letting go.

I could go in a million different directions on this, and my mind is currently colliding with itself as I do, but I started by listening to the Frozen song, "Let It Go." It feels apt.

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside

Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried

Life for so many of us, and often wildly so for me, is often filled with one long to-do list – or one huge swirling storm – of myriad demands, obligations, crises, and even seemingly minor tasks that collectively add up to a massive headache . . . or maybe just an urge to burn the to-do list in a roaring bonfire and run away somewhere.

(Preferably Paris. But I digress.)

I'm glancing at my own to-do list for today: it has 42 items on it. (I sigh a LOT lately.) Some of those items have been on my to-do list for a while, waiting for me to finally have time to vanquish them. And today (as I write this blog) is Sunday, but my to-do list is even longer on Sundays than every other day of the week, because I add half a dozen weekly chores like groceries.

It's after 7:30pm right now, and so far I've crossed off 8 items, when I hoped to get to 18 or 20 today. On a Sunday, which is a day off for most people. If I'm lucky I'll somehow manage to cross off a few more items today. Then I'll start all over again tomorrow.

This past week, though, I caught a horrendous head cold, and I spent most of my time in bed, too sick to write my daily to-do list, let alone accomplish anything on it. And you know what? The world didn't collapse.

Sure, the next couple of weeks will be a nightmare after losing a whole week, but letting go of everything for a week didn't have the repercussions I fear every day. I was able to read a couple of good books. I got more sleep than usual. There weren't MANY benefits to being sick, but there also weren't terrible consequences.

I noticed this, too, when I took a couple of trips this fall: I got way behind on everything, but during the trip itself, life continued. (But I admit that I brought a guitar and my laptop on those trips in order to get some work done.)

Maybe one day I'll truly "let it go" and take a trip or enjoy a fun weekend WITHOUT a guitar and a laptop and the million things I need to do running through my head at warp speed. I don't see that happening anytime soon, but one day.

My final thought, for better or worse, is that big dreams usually require long to-do lists. And I do have big dreams. So maybe it's not yet time for me to run away to Paris or even for an afternoon.

Unless . . . maybe it's time to put "run away" on my to-do list.

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her books and music at marystrand.com.