Don't Cry Because You Lost it...
Written by Katy Wicks - Happy Citta Founder
This week's episode is a little bit different. Rather than sitting, thinking, writing and then, in some kind of robotic, dry nature, reading out what I've written against this unnaturally quiet background, I thought I'd take a little walk down the river and ramble, so that you could hear those thoughts as they come out of my brain.
So I hope that background noise doesn't bother you too much. That is part of the charm, we'll say.
This episode is particularly aimed at the British listeners among you — those of you living in the UK who might be able to relate to some of what I'm experiencing as I take a little walk down the river.
Tell me if you can relate to this.
The leaves at this time of year start to fall off the trees and we question it. We say, Really? Already? Maybe last month, maybe August, those leaves were already falling off the trees and we were thinking, it's earlier and earlier every year. Our summer gets shorter.
Except this year we've had about a two-month stint of sunshine with possibly no rain, to my knowledge or memory and that feels like a blessing in Britain. That's really rare.
Now we're back into the unpredictable weather again, except it's the unpredictable weather we'd normally have had throughout spring, summer and autumn anyway.
It's a beautiful, beautiful afternoon/evening and I'm just taking my little walk on the river. I'm watching the leaves in the breeze and there's this strange feeling of both how beautiful that is, and also a sadness that it means we're starting another winter.
I used to hear this expression all the time when I was younger and it kind of annoyed me:
"Don't cry because you lost it. Smile because you had it."
And I remember always thinking: Who are these people? Who are these people who are able to smile because they had it?
Of course not. Who's capable of that? You'd have to have no emotions to smile because you've lost something.
Strangely, even though it's taken me until the ripe old age of 39, I think I finally understand it. And can relate to it. Maybe more than I would have been able to when I was younger, when my emotions were maybe a little more chaotic than they are now as an adult.
When I used to relate that phrase, it was probably very directly to relationships. Probably relationships with men.
"Don't cry because you lost it. Smile because you had it."
No. I'll quite often be angry about losing it and angry about having had it in the first place.
What I'm realising is that I can walk down my river — my river, as I like to call it... The river near my home — knowing I'm selling my house and I won't live here for very much longer, and still think this is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
Not objectively, necessarily. But subjectively, this might be one of my favourite places. One of the most beautiful places I have ever been, ever loved.
And that's just because it's right here, conveniently located on my doorstep. I get to pop out on my lunch break, or at the end of my working day, or in my free time, whenever that might be.
The water's trickling.
That train is about to go past loudly and annoy me.
We'll wait...
So, while the train passes, I'll just interrupt myself.
I didn't really wrap up that little thread of thought, and I think as I stood watching the leaves fall off the trees, I came to an understanding of what everyone's been talking about when they say, "Smile because you had it."
It's not that losing something becomes pleasant. It's that there can actually be something quite beautiful about watching something wonderful, like a beautiful summer, come to an end, if you allow it to be a beautiful thing.
Like watching the leaves fall off the trees.
The smell of cutting my herbs in the garden stuck with me the other day. I was cutting back coriander, basil, parsley leaves and lemon balm, and the smell was so beautiful, so overpowering and I thought, why don't we get to share this?
Why have we created social media where you can see pictures and read stories? Where are all of the smells? They're the best part, aren't they?
Isn't smell supposed to be our most powerful sense for memory?
Spring, summer, autumn and winter near my home. Such a beautiful thing.
The little flowers in the spring. And now I've discovered little flowers that crop up in the autumn too that I'd never realised were autumn flowers. So colourful, like little droplets along the water's edge and in the grass nearby.
I'm so lucky to experience this and breathe in clean air.
And I know that I could choose this at any point.
Yet I'm also choosing to leave it.
I'm choosing to walk away, leave it all behind, because there's more that I want to see and experience.
Does that make me greedy?
Doe that mean I'm ungrateful for what I have?
I think that's part of why I've been noticing all of this now.
It's because I'm leaving.
Ordinary things aren't quite so ordinary when you know there's an end date to them.
I think this is where I've misunderstood gratitude for quite a long time.
We're told so often that gratitude makes us happier, and there is evidence behind that. Gratitude practices have been associated with improvements in wellbeing, positive emotion and life satisfaction. The effects aren't enormous and they aren't identical for everybody, but there's enough there to suggest that noticing and appreciating what we have can be really good for us.
Somewhere along the way, though, I think I've interpreted that as something slightly different. That if I'm properly grateful for my life, shouldn't I be satisfied with it?
And I'm not sure those two things are the same thing.
I have a family. I have friends. I'm going to leave all of those behind when I walk away from this place, this country, this home.
I'm still grateful.
I still love them.
I can still be filled with "a sense of enormous wellbeing" - in the words of Blur
The birds land on the trees in my garden — new ones recently that I've noticed — and I think, Wow, I'm going to be so sad. So sad to leave this place.
And then somehow I'm still so excited for what's next.
So, can we balance the two?
Can we have gratitude for what we have and what we've experienced while still being ambitious? While still wanting more, or being excited for more adventures?
I think the answer is absolutely yes!
It doesn't show a lack of gratitude for what's already in your life to go and experience other things.
There's so much life to be experienced - Let's have it all if we can!
"Don't cry because you lost it. Smile because you had it."
I still don't entirely embody it. I reserve the right to cry.
But I think we can do both.
I can watch the leaves fall and be sad that summer is over while thinking how lucky I was to have such a beautiful one and I can already grieve a home I haven't left yet and still count down the days until the adventure that takes me away from it.
And I can be incredibly grateful for a life that I don't want to keep exactly as it is.
So I think what I'm concluding is that gratitude doesn't have to make me stay.
It just means I was really paying attention while I was here and absorbing every experience with my time here... On this big floating rock.
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