Let it all go

You might never see the impact you have on others. You plant little seeds in people’s minds all the time, a seed of love, a seed of listening, a seed of brightness, a seed of understanding.

Let it all go, the changes in life come and go. I feel this vast world all so fully, yet briefly. I sit in a cafe in the roads of my city , Da Nang. A place I have called home for three years. A heartbreak, a place that’s my home, a place familiar yet filled with the voices of those I barely understand. I love it here, sometimes so much I want to cry, other times so painfully that I want to scream, because life doesn’t always make sense to me.

How can a person make a home in a place where people say, I don’t understand you.. how can we speak our love, our language together, when neither English or Vietnamese is full. I don’t know either, when it feels that my heart is also not full of one place. I feel that Vietnam is the closest most vulnerable beautifully sorrowful yet abundant place for me. It is as if my heart speaks of here, but the words cannot come out.

They say that in love, pain and love are a thin line. I can see how to meddle between the lines, I have done it my whole life to blend in when necessary and when not. I stand out despite the land, the people, the language. I feel I have been an old soul living lives here for many bodies in this soul. I go to faraway lands already in my 20’s, from the deserts, mountains, villages, bustling cities, hometowns, and yet where do I feel the most vulnerable, yet held?? Right here , in Vietnam. I look to people, it feels like I can understand them deeply, yet I speak and the words don’t come out. I speak like they do, I try, I don’t give up, yet what… silence.

Yet, how is it that the place I grew up we talk and talk, and I never felt seen, not even for a second. Just running everywhere, with superficial fillers, light-hearted sure, but empty. A feeling of nothingness, after awhile. I don’t know why.

I am a special soul , why is it so hard to talk with others and feel seen, to be talk is one thing. But to be really heard is another, a rare thing. A rare encounter. I know that there is a soul or have been souls who could really see me, for me. Not needing a deep explanation, allowing my tender goofy side to emerge, to float, to yell, to laugh. I have seen her, its inside her. The world maybe made her tougher, grew some layers around it, to blend in, to be subdued , less vibrantly blue. Walking sometimes I have been able to connect with another deeply, maybe too briefly, or a reminder we can continue being an inspiration. You might never see the impact you have on others. You plant little seeds in people’s minds all the time, a seed of love, a seed of listening, a seed of brightness, a seed of understanding. Many interactions with others can be brief, but maybe that was the moment you gave them a light to come out of the tunnel. Someone else’s reason to smile.

sunflower howling abstract AI generated

I am getting older, reaching the peak moment of 30’s? What are others my age doing? I live in my own bubble, sometimes inviting, bolding, confronting. I live boldly, much alone, yet I enjoy myself totally. Recently, a lot of people in my life faded out, close friends.. community, an ex-lover longer ago… and these changes are leaving me shaky. I know they aren’t the ones who bring me joy, because I can only see joy if I have the joy in my heart too. I just feel that without familiar faces in my life, it can feel somehow a bit empty.

I am a stable friend, a stable lover, a stable consistent worker.. in all the changes, I enjoy the routine in some ways. Maybe it seems, I reach for change, a restless wanderer. I like to be present though in those I choose to have around me. Even people who it has been years, if I felt we had a meaningful friendship or relationship I think of them in this busy life.

It takes a lot of resilience to stay true to yourself, your vision, your beliefs, your growth everyday despite fallouts, hardships, emotional waves of change. How do you show up for yourself, when the whole tower has crumbled down? How do you come back home to yourself, when everything around seems to be gone?

I have asked myself these deep questions for some time, a lot more recently. I know that if things fall out, I must let them, let them go. I just feel the sound, the thunder of this change, and its a feeling of overwhelm. I want to cling to it, but next moment it already slipped through my fingers, the narrative changed, unfamiliar characters, and here I am still me, a new context, the stream changed, am I drifting off the path, or was this always meant for me to float to this path?

A deep whole of wanting to cling to that memory, the change is not okay for me, I don’t want that. No not again… yet , there it is the crumble. I feel like a warrior, thicker skin, yet my tender heart is so deep inside. I just want it to be held. I know I have the love. I guess it might be true, some impressions of what people say, that I have up walls. I didn’t mean to build them so high that even I can’t see the trees with other human beings.. maybe after a long time of patterns and cycles you learn to go about life all alone. Days pass, meals ate alone, painting, dreaming, celebrating everything in your solitude. The darkest moments spent in your own silence too. No one knows the depth of your experience. I lived a lot of my tribulations in my life and celebrations in life this way. Never feeling that overjoy of support from a community.

I find it hard to really be present in a group, it’s hard to understand their soul when there is so many expectations or roles to fill in this dynamic. I don’t know how to fit into this environment, not easy for me to be a follower when I am a brave, dancing in the wind sunflower.

I look to the locals in Vietnam, sitting together, drinking beer, a helping hand, motorbike red light friends, university students eating banh mi and writing papers, or kids playing in the alleyways, the grab drivers drinking coffee. No place is perfect, but I see the way Vietnamese hold each other up, even in the heat, in the exhaustion, in the joy, in the brotherhood they create. I see also the conflicts they have street vendors competing for customers, money problems, or too drunk uncles. I see how they sing out their emotions, became more light-hearted with the young generation and their art form, their music, their fashion.

I see the way the mothers are businesswoman, mothers, sisters, leaders, and fighters. I see the way the men have the pressure to be strong, to be the money maker, to be inviting, to be a part of the group, to be a leader, to be respectful.

I see myself, the one that doesn’t seem to make sense to anyone around. How can a single person, be so vast and varied? Do people feel ready to listen, to the complex soul that lives inside? I wonder, with a deep pondering. Being the bold different one comes with a strong light, yet I am tired of being seen, tired of explaining to everyone who I am, what happened to me? Can I just be? I think too much they would probably say, yet I don’t know? Did I invite people to think of me this way, or is it myself? A mirror that is not clear. What if I don’t want it to be this way?

I feel patterns yet am blind myself to them. I am too aware in there, a real deep thinker if I let myself slow down. I spent so much time doing things on my own that when I went to other places where they are more helpful, more community oriented it felt more painful to me that they are seeing me.

I surrendered to it, let it fall. I did that and have gotten better; it’s been a lot of healing. I left many places to start again, goodbye special friends, goodbye wind. I am not so little anymore, I am Linh.

You are older now, can you let anyone in? Old patterns are there, but doesn’t need to control your course. No longer alone, no longer, smoke gone… calm after the storm.

Awaken to a new start. A long story, stream of your thoughts, I feel more happy. I can accept even my dark memories and not let it dwell in me. I feel a lot less heavy. I am feeling it all the memories. If I am love, then there is love all around me. Don’t look to another avoiding vulnerability. A mirror we all are , our souls looking for an experience to show light on the parts of ourselves we cannot see.

I think I have been called to look at my shadows, because we all have shadows, yet it’s impossible to know yourself deeply if you haven’t gone into the cracks of your existence, the cracks of those unpleasant feelings, surrender to them with curiosity, to hold them, but let them dissipate, into dewdrops that have elevated. Let all of these parts of you float around, feeling it, letting it, its gone, its here, its over there.

If you get these writings then let it be, let it fall, ashes rising , fresh beginning.

Maybe others don’t experience life this deeply, but this is not my first beginning, for my soul has felt the depth making me think that we are all much more connected, than most let themselves feel.

I am feeling the power of this collective change, in my personal life I have been shocked at these drastic changes, barely able to understand them myself. Listening for a moment, wind howls, will you be a person who sticks around or gone silently? Find the peace, stay in that sweet honey solitude, a presence that is inspiring, filling myself with love sweet melody.

Bye bye butterfly , only some will get me

xxxx