Losing My Grip

The phrase "Losing My Grip" has caught my attention lately. I keep turning it over and over in my mind. To me, losing my grip used to mean losing touch with life or reality. It meant losing the ability to control or deal with a situation. There are counseling services for those who feel they must "get a grip." Doctors have medications to help an individual regain control of their reality. Young people tell each other to "get a grip" meaning to keep or regain self-control.

But losing my grip has a different meaning for me as I get older and a little wiser. Now I believe that losing or at least loosening my grip is desirable. Do I really want to hang on tightly to control myself or situations? Control implies effort to restrain myself, my views on life, or to change a situation. I ask myself why I would want to expend the effort to maintain a narrow view of life or life situations. Why would I want to continue to maintain a tight grip on the past or my views of what is right and acceptable?

Couldn't it be beneficial to relax the grip we have on what we think is reality.  And what exactly is reality? Everyone has a different reality based on their experiences and perceptions. Loosening my grip allows me to accept others and their views as possible realities. This broadens my own view of life. It allows me to accept whatever is happening now as being perfect as it is with perfect timing. It allows me to relax and not be so uptight about how things "should" be.

In the poem, "Warning (When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple)," 29 year old Jenny Joseph dreams of an age when she can loosen her grip, when she doesn't have to worry about being an example for the children, and when she no longer must conform to society's expectations. I believe I am approaching the age when I can "begin wearing purple, go out in my slippers in the rain, pick flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit." I shall lose my grip!