I better let you go.

Easier said than done.

I say these 5 words a lot.

When it used to get to the end of a session, if I had a chatty client and I wanted my lunch, I’d say ‘I better let you go’. Like I was doing them a favour, to prompt them to think of what they had on for the rest of the day, so I could get on with mine.

It is how I’m feeling about the ‘Hayley’ side of me. She’s been with me for such a long time, most of my adult life. I need to figure out who she is now and what to do with her. She’s on my passport, a legal reminder, not easily erased. She’s on the internet, a visual reminder, impossible to eradicate.

For a long while, she was the best version of me, the organized and hard-working part of me. She was the good friend, a sought after escort, and scared off men who got too close. She made me, me.

If I ever had phone calls, those words usually indicated that I felt I’d talked too much, or run out of things to say. It was how I ended the final phone call to my ex, not a goodbye. Just a quiet, reluctant acknowledgment that I’d been holding on for too long. Maybe friends were right, and he was holding me back, but I miss being held, and miss the idea of having my hand held as I stepped into the unknown.

There was always going to be a period of time between saying ‘I better let you go’ and actually letting go. Actually ceasing to think about what was needed from me by others, and figuring out what I wanted. What I wanted to do, what I want to give. There’s space in my brain for kindness and creativity again, a space which was clogged by people pleasing and pleasing people for goodness knows how long.
A few weeks on, and all I can feel is freedom, dangerous quantities of the stuff, and no longer am I overwhelmed by it.

The practical side of life is all there in much the same way it has been for a long time, I’m not letting go of what to learn, how to work, where to live. I thought the daydreams disappeared, but I’ve learnt to dream bigger.

When I started drafting this blog, only a week or so ago, the idea of giving up the job, the second phone, of all the pretty work outfits, the kink-furniture, the happy ending, all felt so big. And now they just don’t. The old phone has been misplaced more than once, make-up case reported missing in action, the razors will last me the amount of time suggested on the packaging. There is a courier coming to take the cage away next week and don’t you worry, it’s going to a good home. It’ll get lots of love and all of the play time, I am sure.

I’ve been letting go of so much these past few years, and it’s almost always been liberating. I don’t know why I expected this next phase to be any different. Over-achiever over here, finding it’s ok to live a little less.

I just had 3 solid days of reading, reflecting & creative writing, because that’s what I felt like doing. Shit, just doing what I felt like doing? Not what I thought I should be doing, or what others told me I should be doing? Not trying to prove myself, or post it anywhere. Not earning, not learning. Just shaping ideas. Achieving nothing right now, would be an achievement.
The impostor syndrome, questioning whether I’d be any good at anything else, has let itself go. I have reluctantly accepted I should at least begin to polish online profiles for new job. Real life is peeking in through the blinds wanting to come in, but I could gladly fester at the kitchen table, in oversized jumpers, for the rest of the year.

Whilst we’re on the topic, I appreciate it’s been difficult for some of former clients to let me go. I always tried my best to keep things professional, but many were emotionally invested in me. Some kindly, some far too much. I want a clean break, I cannot see what life is like, if that part of my old life is holding on to me.

Keeping in touch with past clients isn’t high on my agenda, save for posting these blogs onto the web and hoping they’re found by the right people at the right time for them.

The way I want to end this blog is (and interpret it whichever way you need right now) If you love them, let them go.