Mandy Hale - Turn Toward the Sun: Releasing What If and Embracing What Is

T he book youre holding in your hands was supposed to be a different book.

It was supposed to be a very sassy, pithy book about letting go and moving on. If youve read my other books, especially my last book, Don t Believe the Swipe , and/or if you follow me on social media, you know I love sassy and pithy. And letting go and moving on are both topics I love to talk about. You dont make it to age forty-two as a single woman and not know a thing or two about letting go and moving on. Those are both really important concepts to explore, as I think most humans in general inherently struggle with letting go and moving on (especially those of us humans who happen to be anxiety-ridden control freaks). So I was excited to dive into a book all about letting go and moving on: from lost love, from toxic relationships, from dead-end careers, from one-sided friendships, from negative mindsets, etc., etc. And this book will cover some of those things.

But theyre not the overlying themes of the book.

Why?

Because 2020 happened.

The dumpster fire that was 2020. The year that a global pandemic left us all shook . The year that racial injustice and political mayhem and social unrest raged. The year that found many of us quarantining alone for months on end. The year that the murder hornets came for us all. (And then left just as quickly because they read the room and decided that even they couldnt handle 2020.) The year that kept going... and going... and going. The year that left every person on the planet changed in one way or another.

It was also the year that both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer, one month apart from each other.

Even as I type that sentence, it still feels unreal to me. Sometimes, like right now, it hits me all over again that both of my parents, my best friends on this earth, have cancer... and I struggle to catch my breath. I find myself mentally bargaining: Well, what if we could go back in time and change this? What if the doctor had found it sooner? What if none of this is even real and I wake up tomorrow and it s all just been a bad dream? WHAT IF, WHAT IF, WHAT IF?!

Ive always been obsessed with the idea of how things could be or should be. A girl with her head in the clouds. A dreamer. An idealist. A believer in magic. Ive spent most of my life rejecting reality. I love movies and romance and Hollywood endings and happily ever afters. One could even argue that thats why Im still singlebecause when you go through life expecting to find rom-com-level love on every corner, it can make real-life love seem... ordinary. Boring. Disappointing even.

Ive also projected my great big, unrealistic expectations and coulda woulda shoulda s onto pretty much every other aspect of my life. I expect my friendships to look exactly like Monica, Rachel, and Phoebes. I expect my writing career to mirror that of Carrie Bradshaws. I expect family gatherings to be these grand Hallmark movielevel events, when in reality, they turn out to be much more National Lampoonlevel fiascos. I have quite literally spent my life living in the what if . What if life was like this? What if love was like this? What if I was like this? So much so, that I have often overlooked and even downright ignored the what is . The what is being what is really happening. What my life really looks like. What actual love and not glittery love is supposed to look like. What real families and friendships and faith and feelings are made of instead of what TV and movies and books and everyone elses shiny social media posts tell me they should be made of.

And then 2020 happened. And then the pandemic happened. And then my parents diagnoses happened.

And I couldnt live in Fantasyland anymore. Instead, I was brought crashing down to earth in a puddle of fear and grief and anxiety because this time, the what is was so big, I couldnt ignore it. I couldnt run from it. I couldnt deny it. I had to learn to live with it. And not just live with it but in it... and also somehow accept it and work with it and survive it and even thrive in the midst of it.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the whole thing is that for Lent 2020, I decided to give up... control .

For those of you not familiar with Lent, its a Christian tradition in which you give up somethinga bad habit, junk food, television, social media, etc.for approximately forty days, or from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday. Its designed to imitate Jesuss fasting in the wilderness before He began His public ministry. I try to give up something every year in an effort to better myself, even if its just Netflix or a sugary addiction. But in 2020, I decided to go big or go home and surrender control. As an admitted lifelong control freak, I felt like it was time to take my hands off the wheel for a while and let God take over. You know that old adage about if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans? Welp... I think in this instance, if you want to make God laugh, give up control in the year 2020, right before a global pandemic is unleashed into the world. I made my Lent resolution in February 2020. Exactly one month later, the entire world spun out of control.