Letting Go

When I was a kid, we had a really awesome rope swing that my parents put up in a tree. After dad got home from work, we’d go up there and jump on the giant knot. We’d spend some great family time swinging back and forth over this little valley. Since it was Western Washington, it was a little marshy on the other side, full of that good undergrowth stuff like skunk cabbage. I remember one specific incident when my dad was pushing me on the swing. For whatever reason, I let go… for a few short minutes, I was flying. The next minute I was laying in the skunk cabbage with my parents laughing asking me why I let go of the rope! 

As we grow up, we forget the importance of letting go. I’ve been feeling like it is time to dream again. I started to think about the reasons I don’t dream anymore. I realized that most of it was carrying around hurt from previous events in our lives. When we refuse to let go of the hurts from previous things, I think it debilitates our ability to dream. When we cease to dream, it gets us in a rut of thinking about all of the things that have held us back.

It’s easy to remember losing our house and business. Or being forced to let go of another home we rented, where it felt like dreams ran wild. We moved in with my parents for a year, while it was wonderful in some areas, it still left us feeling like we failed to provide for our own little family. And when we finally thought things were getting better, it was the loss of Wayne’s job. It’s the fear that grips our hearts every time we dare to be happy, that we will be again displaced. As easy as it is to remember, it’s not always as easy to dismiss those thoughts.

Lately, I realize that in order to move forward again, I have to start letting go. I need to let go of the baggage that comes with being let down or angry, letting go of the failure and moving forward with the lesson learned. Sometimes it means letting go a bit at a time with my kids, to allow them to be their own people. Letting the housework sit in favor of enjoying a day. And letting go sometimes hurts. It means that I have to evaluate and release those possessive emotions that I feel I’ve earned.

As I contemplate these thoughts, it is almost like having heart surgery. There are some tender spots in there that I didn’t realize I’d been shoving aside. There are relationships that I’ve let lapse for the sake of deserving to carry around hurts and warning labels for these people. Walls built that I thought were keeping me safe, but instead were preventing me from moving on.

Dreaming opens up the armor just enough that you could be hurt or let down again… because you allow yourself to believe in the possibility that it can be different this time around. That’s hard to do. It’s easier to count the reasons not to try again and sink your effort into why you shouldn’t. 

At the end of one’s life, they do all of the things that they should have done before, liberating them of the” I should haves” before they die. Sometimes that time is too short and the people around them are left mourning what could have/should have been. Things they should have said, they should have done. Relationships they missed out on before they received the notification that it was done. 

While you can’t control other peoples reaction to trying again, you still benefit more by being unselfish and letting go on your end. One of my favorite movies, Conspiracy Theory, used the word “Geronimo” for describing love, “because when you're in love, you'll jump off the Empire State and you won't care. Screaming, "Geronimo" all the way down. It's great.” Somewhere in the course of time, we lose the Geronimo in life.

I know I do. I have been looking at my kids, remembering when they were infants and so easy to love and nurture because they needed me so much. Now I see stinky dirty feet, attitudes and someone who doesn’t listen any better than they did as an infant, except they know better now. But the other day, when I thought I missed picking up my daughter from the bus stop, she became that little infant in my eyes and when she finally got home, I hugged her like she was my most treasured possession again. Why is it easier to do that when you think you’ve lost them, than in the norm? 

When do you stop living with passion and bright shiny dreams for your future? When we started out, we were on the fast track to where we wanted to be in life. We got a new truck, new home and had a baby… had money in the savings after we did that too. I was so proud and we thought we were on our way. Unfortunately, we were also one of the first ones the recession hit. It hit hard, because even five years later, we see people who were able to be saved, renegotiate their mortgages, take part in programs designed to help you keep your home. We see people picking up homes for ridiculous prices and we can’t participate in that even now. It hurts. That destroyed our hope and our dreams and sometimes it still does. We love our neighborhood and the house that we rent, but there is always a niggling thought in the back of our mind that someday, it might be sold as soon as we are settled.  

If we focus on that aspect to long, it takes away from our enjoyment of the beauty that we have around us. The yard that we’ve carefully tended from dirt patches to green. All of the starts I’ve diligently gathered and clearance plants that I’ve saved. 

It trickles into other aspects of life too. As we start to shut down one area of the heart, the others start shutting down too. Relationships begin to dwindle as you look at the different ways that certain individuals have hurt you. It begins to rob the joy in every day or week comforts that you previously enjoyed and were charged by. Soon, you find yourself sitting alone in your home, hesitant to try again, burying yourself in everyday tasks that make the time pass. 

Our family lost a member this week. It hurts, even though separated by distance. It feels like a part of the relationship that our long distance families have been able to have online has been cut short. I hurt for the ones around me who will be reminded by memories at random times. It hurts because it makes me evaluate how much of life I may have let pass by holding onto things that won’t matter later. It hurts to see how selfish I’ve been by shutting down and out to prevent being hurt further instead of letting go. 

When everything else was being lost, relationships were what carried us through. House to house, life event to life event, it was the people around us who made the difference. It was holding onto each other and our family, trusting that together, we would make it through. 

Moving forward with the fear of losing isn’t progress. Embracing possibilities knowing that some of them may not work out, but that there is a purpose for the time spent, is. I want to embrace the potential of life like a silly kid letting go of a swing like they have nothing to lose… and flying for the first time. The skunk cabbage didn’t kill my enthusiasm for swinging, it just taught me to hold onto what was important.