Kathy Crabbe

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Learning to Let Go

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"About Lost Things" by Guest Writer, Cindy S.

I have an old fishing tackle box full of charms, pendants, stones, hearts and beads. I wear them, 2 or 3 at a time, on a silver chain and I wear the chain everyday. I change what's on the chain as I feel like it. None of this jewelry is expensive, but each has a special meaning to me. For example, right now on the chain is a jade angel, a small bloodstone heart and a St. Anthony's medal that my daughter bought for me in Ireland. Jade and bloodstone are sometimes cited as alternate birthstones for Pisces and St. Anthony is the patron saint (maybe St. Anne too) of lost things.

By accident, negligence or absent-mindedness, I tend to lose or misplace things. A lot. Everyday. The things that most frequently go missing are my keys, my glasses, an important something (like a report) at work and trinkets from that chain.

Most recently missing from the chain was a small, pretty citrine nugget (prescribed for me by Kathy!). Citrine helps to encourage optimism and energy. It is also one of the few gemstones that doesn't require cleansing because it doesn't accumulate negativity. I had only had it for a couple of weeks, looked down at the chain and...oh,no...gone.
There's always a terrible feeling when something is lost, isn't there? With keys and glasses, it's a feeling of panic usually because I'm just about to leave the house and have to be somewhere on time. When one of my objects are lost, the feeling is sad, a small grief.
A few years ago, a friend taught me this 2 step way to handle lost items: After frantically searching-and there's almost no way to avoid that-first, be quiet (not easy), send out a prayer or a request to your higher power, angel or helper, then just forget about it (also not easy, but possible). It's amazing how many of the lost objects just, sooner or later, reappear. I have learned for the sake of my blood pressure to keep extra keys and glasses and to color code stuff at work, but so far the lost ones have not been irretrievably lost. They turn up: under the bed, in a pocket, under a bunch of papers. The citrine reappeared on the driver's seat of my car! It had slipped off it's clasp and can be repaired with some heavy-duty glue. Other special items might not return quickly or ever and here's the second step: let it go.

Somewhere in the world is a silver deer charm (deer are one of my familiars), an amethyst pendant, a pink crystal heart, a turquoise fish earring and other items like a beloved book, a fan, a sweater that may or may not find their ways back to me. When I let it go, I allow myself to assume that someone else will find it and it becomes a gift from me, to....who knows? Someone else who needed it more? Someone else who will find joy in owning it? And I learn that old lesson again: Losing a thing is not the worst that can happen, that things are just that: things. Less is more. Let it go.