Can the phrases ‘let go’ and ‘letting go’ only be confined to the act of one’s hand opening to release their grip on something they were holding on to? It can be argued that when it comes to matters pertaining the act of losing someone or something dear to us, you don’t ‘let go’, but ‘learn to live with your loss’. Grief is an odd entity to me, I’ve observed it’s effect on friends and family, and really takes a different form every time depending on the weight of the situation, and how many people you feel you can turn to.

On the morning of November 15th 2013 it felt like my world stopped. I received the news that my best friend passed away in a sudden accident. I can only describe the sensation I felt as a strong desire to implode, gather myself and explode in one grand show over Columbus, where I was living at the time. There’s a mild curiosity as to what jokes about Ohio would be born from that event. The most I could do was create art around how I felt, like this stop motion animation I created for one of my classes in college.

Now, sitting in my bedroom in Gaborone this tepid November evening in 2018 I can feel a milder version of the that implosion-explosion sensation surging beneath my skin. The journey of coming to terms with the loss has seen me travelling to Peru to visit his family, conversations with friends, countless hours in therapy, and even more hours crying and navigating this space. It would be very remiss of me if I didn’t mention the answers I sought at the bottom of liquor bottles, and the bridges I burned during this period. My coping mechanisms included self-destruction in the mildest of ways, but sometimes in plain sight hoping someone would take me aside and ask, “are you alright?” and “why are you no longer drinking cucumber water?” This may resonate with some, and may arouse curiosity in others; I’ve come to accept that that’s okay.

In an attempt to answer the questions of self, I began the extraction of things that brought me harm. It’s been a tumultuous almost 3 years since I began this journey, removing nicotine and alcohol at the beginning, reading books that could equip me with tools I missed out on during my formative years, and beginning the practice of positive self-talk. Oh, I forgot to mention yoga! Yoga has been great too. It’s taught me that my body should not contort that way…The more you know.

Something I wasn’t prepared for during this transition was the unfriending as the activities I used to be able to participate in I no longer had the capacity for. I tweeted something that I found speaks to the social fibre of the city I live in. For someone that moved around quite a bit, and prided himself on being able to adapt, my attitude to change was – how can I put this? Change is that shadowy place Mufasa mentioned, but in this version of my story Simba kept his prepubescent butt out of there!

I came to realise that I placed a lot of weight on a lot of things that weren’t me, and as a result, when things shifted, and I ‘lost’ those things, I felt stripped. I put lost in inverted comas because those things were never promised to me, and were never mine to possess in the first place; is that a form of narcissism? Can someone please check that out for me? Thanks in advance!

The passing away of my best friend threw me against the ground, shattering me apart and exposing all the masks I hid behind. Lewis Howes released his book The Mask of Masculinity, where as the title suggests, describes the various masks men wear, and project that as their identity. Gentlemen, do yourselves a favour and read this book! You’ll thank yourselves for it. If it doesn’t speak to you directly, it may help you identify traits in men around you, and give you the tools to deal with them. However, if you feel it doesn’t speak to you: once you’re done reading it, put it down, go take an ice cold shower,  return to the book, and read it again from the beginning; don’t play yourself! I wore every single one of those masks at some point or another. I had to put the book down for a day or two while I ruminated on what I’d read, and having been read for filth.

The energy I spent trying to be someone in an attempt to create this impression to myself of who I was supposed to be was incredibly exhausting.

“A closed hand cannot receive.”

I heard that somewhere, and don’t know who said it, and Google was not much help, but that’s beside the point. That quote speaks to the effect of stewing in memories of people, places and things that ought to have been burned from your memory. Not to say that they lack importance, but they hinder your receiving things that could excite your life’s timeline, and shift your perspective. 

So I suppose one could use ‘letting go’ and its variations in the context of losing something of someone dear to us. If we don’t, we won’t see what tools to make living with our loss that much more manageable the people in our corner, and experiences in our lives gift us with. The catharsis that follows and you find your purpose is extraordinary. Well, at least that’s I read on a bumper sticker at a Greyhound bus station somewhere. I’m still journeying; I’ll let you know when I get there. 

Cheers to your growth. Onward!