LETTING GO – WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN?

 

No phrase has been thrown around with more abandon in my world lately than “Letting Go” “ Let Go” “You’ve Got to Let Go”  “Only choice you have is to Let Go.”  At it’s most basic level I get it – at it’s most intricate I find it totally perplexing.

We are not talking about a pacifier, our favorite pair of torn jeans or a grudge, we are talking about our children. The people who were given to us by whom ever you choose to believe gives us our children. We have lived with  them every day for close to two decades.  We have taken them from people who could do nothing for them selves to according to them, now everything.

Some say they are on loan, they tend to be the ones more comfortable with the phrase letting go. Children are not on loan they are apart of you until the day you die. They are your family and their family becomes your family and on it goes.

SO LET GO OF WHAT?

These are the images that come to my mind when I hear – LET GO.

Throw them in the pool and they will teach themselves to swim. That was the theory when we were growing up and according to family lore the way I learned to swim.  But we are also the generation who learned to smoke while watching our parents at the dinner table.

I did learn to smoke and swim quite well.

Let go of their hand while crossing the street. OK, I did that a long time ago.

Don’t respond to every emotional whim or fluctuation they fling your way. You have to do this in self-defense at a certain point.

Stop calling every ten minutes when they are not in your company. I taught myself that one.

Don’t comment on their clothes, boyfriends, hair or state of room. I’m better at some than others, but am working on all of the above. Some times I do the room myself. I live here too you know.

LET GO of ________???????

Worrying???  How do love something more than yourself and not worry about it? Someone rationally explain that one to me.  Come on, I’m all ears.

 I worry about my dogs, I worry about my husband, I worry about my assistant. But part of the built in parent kit you get when your kids are born is an automatic worry meter. Now different people’s are set on different levels, as you can only imagine mine is in the high range; but come on, just because they go in twenty-four hours from being seventeen to eighteen you’re not supposed to worry where they are at four in the morning. That is letting go???  It feels unnatural to me and I don’t know a good mother who can pull it off.

And then one day, you just leave them in a strange town standing in front of strange building totally out of your jurisdiction all together, you’re not supposed to worry, is that called letting go?

Is pretending you don’t care letting go or just a game of make-believe?

Is just saying OK I’ve done my job now be off with you – letting go?

Is not worrying if they are making bad choices not letting go?

WHAT IS LETTING GO?  I don’t think we need to let go as much as we need to find a new phrase for this next phase of our lives together.

This came to me from a friend the other day – “So my advice, which as a non-parent could be completely and utterly worthless, is to let your control go and set yourself free to trust in her and let her become the person she needs to be.”

This is more in line with my thinking.  Yet I don’t honestly know how stop someone from being the person they are meant to be. There are very few Big Edie- Little Edie’s out there.

People will eventually become who they are meant to be. Now if you try and stop them and that would be a form of holding on too tight, they will walk away from you or carry so much resentment a close relationship would be impossible.

I guess, as I have never imposed on either of my children any desires as to what or whom I want them to be this scenario has never occurred to me.

But in loving someone you are also interested in them. You want to know if they are happy, who their friends are, what are their interests, where did they go last night.  Did hey have fun. You ask these questions of your friends, why is that OK, but with your kids it becomes intrusive?

You ask your husband how is day went, but when your kid turns eighteen that question is seen as a control mechanism?

Perhaps I am controlling, no, I am controlling in certain ways, but not with the way I want them to live their lives.  Though as a parent there is a way I want them to be in the world that conforms to a certain set of standards I follow.  Correct me if I’m wrong but it doesn’t feel like holding on.

I want them to be honest, I want them to be kind, I want them to be responsible, I want them to find something they are passionate about to do with their lives in terms of work. I want them to find someone to love who loves them who makes them feel secure and adored and seen for who they are.

I want them to have their own children if they want them and I want them. And I want them to love them so much they will come to me some day and ask me how do I let go and mom, what does that mean, and how did you do it?   And I will respond “what makes you think I ever did?”

Real parent/child love tethers you to their souls for life.  You see it with women who have sons on death row show up for visiting days with cookies and pats through glass.  Turning away from those you love and gave birth to is in essence turning away from yourself.

I’m all in favor of personal freedom and choices and learing to live in the world on your own terms.  I’m in favor of tattoos and odd love choices until you find the right one. I’m in favor of grabbing life and letting in toss you about until you end up in the right place.

I’m not in favor of the phrase letting go, it sounds too permanent and final and cruel in a way.

Let’s all find a new phrase that  doesn’t make us feel like the center of our hearts is being torn out and tossed into the wind.

 

FRESHMAN MOM