Superpower #25: Letting Go

Frances was nine now and had taken on an air of maturity that Joan both celebrated and mourned.  There was no sitting on Joan’s lap anymore, no squishing their noses together, no carrying Frances across a crowded parking lot. Those things had been replaced by talking about pop music and wanting to see a lot of the same movies and less being asked of Joan in the taking care of her.  When Frances had been younger, Joan had sometimes carried her for such long distances that it hurt her back. And Frances would hold on so tight that sometimes she would press on Joan’s windpipe or kick her in the ribs. Now, Frances would barely hold her hand. Joan felt so acutely that the incurable problem with life was that she could not have balance. She could not have toddler Frances and fifth grade Frances at the same time. She could not meet adult Frances and have a moment to hold baby Frances all at once. You could not have a little of everything you wanted. Joan tried to remind herself that when Frances had been younger, she had held Frances’s little hand every single chance she got. When Frances had been a baby, she had smelled her hair sometimes for whole minutes at a time. She had been present for all of it. Didn’t that mean she wouldn’t grieve its loss since she had voraciously and self-indulgently taken all of it that was offered? No. It did not. She still ached for every version of Frances. But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming. She missed every Frances she had known. But, oh! This Frances!

From Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

This one isn’t actually about you. It’s about me and the motherhood superpower that you and your siblings seem unflinchingly determined to help me develop: my superpower of letting go. Believe me when I tell you that this one requires superhuman stoicism and strength. It takes so much willpower and courage and determination--everything I’ve got and then some. I recently heard a conservative commentator say that allowing your children to soar off into their independent lives is a woman’s crucifixion. That metaphor has haunted me ever since. Maybe it’s melodramatic to put it that way, but at a soul level, I’ve never experienced something so wrenching as having to let you go. My inclination is to clutch you all so tightly and keep you close. But I know it’s time to let you fly, so I let go. I’ve been doing it all your life. It’s my superpower.

The day we dropped you off at Maryville was, as all moving days, chaotic and full. It’s the silver lining of an otherwise difficult day—there’s just not much time to wallow. When we were redirected to campus health to straighten out some issues with your paperwork, I had a brief moment when my façade slipped a little bit. I had tried throughout the summer to remain hands off as you answered emails and completed paperwork. As I noted previously, you are quite competent and independent and, while I had a niggling suspicion that I should check up on things, I forced myself to engage only when asked and resist my inclination to swoop in and handle things. The result, however, was that we spent a good part of the drive to campus on the phone with various medical providers trying to get your paperwork sorted out. When we arrived at campus health, they were kind and courteous but unrelenting. Something was missing. I held it together until we got outside, and then I burst into tears.

“It’s always all on me!” I sobbed. “And you have no idea how hard it all is!” I snapped in the direction of your hapless father. (I often mentally refer to the “I am out here for you!” speech from Jerry Maguire in these moments. “Help me, help you!!...You have no idea what it’s like to be out here for you! It is an UP AT DAWN PRIDE SWALLOWING SIEGE.”) The paperwork snafu was something, under normal circumstances, I can handle. I just can. I’m organized and competent and polite and trustworthy. Paperwork and rules are some of my better, more natural superpowers. But underlying this particular episode was the searing heartache of letting you go, of letting you down on this most epic of important days, of saying goodbye. So, I lost it.

But that was the only time. Otherwise, I just moved things and organized things and cleaned things. I wiped out your new fridge and cleaned the fruit we bought you. I hung up all your sweatshirts in your closet. I gave my opinion on how straight your decorations were hung, on where you should keep your toiletries, on the placement of your makeup mirror.

We had planned to spend the night since I wasn’t eager to make the 5-hour drive to St. Louis twice in one day and (the real reason) because I wanted to remain close in case you got scared or lonesome that first night (ha!). The plan had been to take you and any new friends or roommates who were interested out for dinner that night and then check in the next morning before heading off to another commitment with your older sister (white coat ceremony for dental school). It became very evident very quickly that you were eager for us to go. As the afternoon wound down, you stood awkwardly nearby saying things like “so… what's next? What do you want to do now?”

“Do you want to go out to dinner with us?” I asked, admittedly a bit expectantly.
“I mean, my friends are going to the cafeteria so… maybe you and dad can have a date night?” you responded hopefully.

“Do you just want us to go?” I asked.

“Yes!” you exhaled, visibly relieved. “I mean, if that’s ok with you,” you quickly added. You probably saw something in my face, but I quickly called on my well-developed superpower and smiled at you, my little social butterfly whose first and truest superpower has always been making friends.

“Ok, sounds good,” I said, trying for glib. I’ve faked my way through that moment 1000 times in your childhood.

Motherhood is nothing if not a study in letting go. Even just the act of birthing you meant I had to let go of the security and ease of caring for you inside my own body. Do you know that you and I used to play a poking tickle game before you were even born? You were the only baby I remember doing this with, and it probably should have been a clue to the playful, cheerful soul you would go on to be. I vividly remember sitting in a boring meeting when I was about 8 months pregnant and feeling your little heel poke the side of my enormous belly. I poked you back, up near the top of my right abdomen, and you poked again. I swear you were playing with me. We kept tapping back and forth, and I felt a delighted smile burst across my face. Knowing you now, I can just imagine you giggling as you played, rolling around just beneath my heart, letting me know you were there, you were ready for fun, you were mine.

A month later, 2 days overdue under a sweltering July sun, I sat in the parking lot outside my midwife’s office and begged you to come out. “There’s not room in here for two of us!” I sobbed. I was ready by then for the first act of letting go.

And then it just progressed from there, relentlessly, inexorably leading us to this messy dorm room on an August afternoon. Letting you go.

You walked (ran really) early—always away from me and into some great new adventure. And I let go. You danced into daycare, then preschool, then kindergarten with an open heart and a giant smile. And I let go. You started 1^st grade, middle school, high school. And I let go. And now, I’m doing it again. I’m pretty super at it now. And eventually, I will let you go into your first job, down the aisle into the arms of the man you love, into the delivery room for your own little daughter. I’m always letting go. I always will, because I know you’ll come home to me sometimes, and I know it’s where you’re meant to go. Up, away, into your own wonderful life. I let go.

That night, I texted you from the first bar your dad and I visited on our “date night”. (Yes, I said first. I will miss you like one of my limbs, but your dad and I still remember how to have fun!) I wanted to make up for that moment when you might have caught something less than super in my letting go. I wanted you to know we were going to be great.

I quickly followed it with an invitation to breakfast the next day.

Your response was quick and decisive.

I felt the tug again, the reminder that this is a superpower for a reason—because it requires strength and courage and a poker face (easier to do via text). You were ready to begin your new life. I needed to let go.

As I stood in line the next morning waiting for your Starbucks orders, it occurred to me that you have Starbucks on campus and it is covered as part of your meal plan, which is covered by your full tuition, room and board basketball scholarship. You are embarking on a life full of friends, basketball, new adventures, and unlimited, free Starbucks. It’s time to let go.

Superpower #23: Independence

Your aunt Carrie loves to tell a few stories about you as a little girl, and I will repeat them here in the interest of illustrating your 23^rd superpower: Independence.

When her boys were little, Carrie would bring them to visit during the summer for weeks at a time. I would take as much time off of work as I could manage, and we created some of our most beloved memories during those long, hot summer days. We would bathe and feed you all together and care for whatever little one was nearby, hers or mine. You were all ours.

On one of these visits, Carrie had some assortment of cousins and siblings in the big bathtub of our old house on Barbaralee. A couple of them started fighting, as siblings and cousins as close as siblings are wont to do. I've long forgotten who the perpetrators were, but the crux of the issue seemed to be a stolen washcloth. You were standing nearby, waiting for your turn in the soapy water and, with your signature cheerful pragmatism, you walked to a nearby drawer, pulled out a clean washcloth and handed it to Carrie. If a problem was solvable and you could handle it on your own, you did. Carrie was delighted by your initiative. You were only the fourth oldest, not the typical recipient of the "little adult" expectations we tend to layer on our oldest children. But you were independent, confident, sure of the solution; and so, you acted.

Later that same visit, we were debating the logistics of some sort of errand or activity. We were always negotiating comings, goings, and groupings in those days. I can't remember if any of you were old enough to stay alone at that point, but I know for certain that you were not. Nevertheless, you turned your confident gaze to your aunt and said, "Carrie, why can't I just watch them?" (Them being your cousins--older and younger--and yourself). 

"Claire, because you are three!" she told you, at which you surely shrugged as if to say, "so?". It didn't make any sense to you. You would certainly have been, at least in your own estimation, capable of handling anything that came your way. Honestly, you were so independent and sure of yourself, you probably could have. Carrie also loves to laugh about you going to get crackers when you wanted a snack. Not that this, in itself, was such an impressive feat, but we kept the crackers on a high shelf, and you had to push a chair over to the counter and then climb all the way up to get them. I had my hands so full by the time you came along, and you proved early how adept you were at independently taking care of yourself. I'm pretty sure I was just relieved to have one less little person to take constant care of. You were taking pretty good care of yourself and saw no reason to interrupt me or any other grownup to track down a snack when you were completely capable of handling it on your own.

When your oldest brother, Sam, was invited to his first ever non-family birthday party in kindergarten, you rode with me to drop him off. It was hosted in an apple orchard, and, as we walked up to the fray, there was a pack of children running noisily among the trees. I was distracted by your sister (a toddler), your brother (shy, clinging to my legs, unhelpful with the gift and his sweatshirt). I looked down to discover you were gone. I gasped and looked around, only to find you cavorting joyfully among the trees with the whooping children. Your brother, the invitee, had to be coaxed into the crowd, but you had joyfully jumped in without hesitation. It was a bit ironic to disappoint two children that fall day--one who desperately wanted to stay and play but wasn't invited, and one who wanted nothing more than to climb back in my minivan and skip the whole thing who was. 

I could lay out dozens of other examples of your independence as you grew, but I will end with one more example from your senior year. Over the years, you have continually impressed me with your willingness to make phone calls and schedule meetings, to send emails and raise your hand. As your final year of high school wound down to a close, you hadn't quite managed to secure your dual language certification from the state by conventional means. I had resigned myself to your not having it, assuming that your fluency in Spanish didn't depend on some piece of paper from the Governor, and AI is likely to make the ability to communicate in multiple languages obsolete eventually anyway. But you were unwilling to forgo this recognition, and, independently, found a workaround through your guidance office as school. I emailed a few times with the foreign language coordinator as you were seeking this certification, and I admit I couldn't quite follow the expectations she was laying out for you. I believe there was some kind of test involved? And maybe an in-person interview? It is a testament to your independence that I have no idea what it entailed, except the letter that arrived in the mail congratulating you on its achievement.

I love so much about being a mother, and one of the most wonderful things is watching you and your siblings grow up. Some of you step timidly into the world, and others--you especially--leap in with shining eyes and an eager heart. You are ready for what the world sends your way because you can handle yourself and your life. This is so important to me as a mom: knowing that you are able to independently tackle the challenges your life will send your way. 

As I near the end of these tributes to your superpowers, I find that I trip over myself in my effort to lay them all out. Your independence and your confidence and your leadership and your strength all blend together to paint a vivid picture of a vivid, wonderful girl. 

There is a meme I love to send that features another well known "independent woman" that I will finish with here. You know this is my favorite response when you ask for my help with something (dare I say you come by this superpower naturally--via your mother?). Feel free to adopt it into your own repertoire in the future. With your superpower of independence, it should be handled.

Superpower #24: Intelligence

                                         

I want to finish this series of essays on a superpower I know you underestimate in yourself: intelligence. You need to appreciate and allow this superpower to flourish in your life. 

When I was in college, I read a book that changed my life (I know, I know, you are all sick of me telling you about the books I love. But it’s kind of like how your brothers insist on talking about sports heroes, or your dad talks about the lawn and trees. We are all drawn to and are made to love certain things. And then we do them, no matter what else interferes in our lives, and we want to tell others about them. For me this has always been, and likely always will be, reading. But I digress. About this one particular book). The title was Multiple Intelligences, New Horizons in Theory and Practice, and I had to read it for a course in the honors program I was enrolled in. I only bring up the honors program because it will be important later in this post.  It is not an exaggeration to say that this book literally changed my life. But first, a little back story.

I spent most of my life believing I was smart. Every indicator in every circumstance pointed me in that direction. My dad swears that he showed me the word “Milk” written on a piece of paper when I was just a toddler and I read it back to him. My mom loves to tell the story about how she exclaimed at my first parent teacher conference, “I didn’t know you taught them how to read!” and my sweet kindergarten teacher responding “We don’t!” with a sheepish laugh. According to family legend, I taught myself. When I was in first grade, I vividly recall the day that they were assigning small groups for reading class. Even though the teachers tried to hide it, it was always clear to everyone that the groupings were tiered by ability—the “smartest” kids went in one group, the average in another and so on. They called us something innocuous like “the bluejays” and “the cardinals” but we all figured it out quickly (at least I did, but then, I was the smartest ha ha). You don’t have to be assigned to the best groups very often to start to absorb that intelligence is part of your identity. This morning in first grade I was horrified when my name was not called for any of the groups. I was a painfully shy and timid child at that age (no, really!) and I was nearly in tears as I raised my hand to ask where I belonged. The teacher told me I was going to a “special” group in the other 1^st grade classroom. Pretty quickly, I learned that they had pulled together the "smartest" kids to take on a much more advanced curriculum. Later, I was identified as “talented and gifted” (I don’t know if they do that anymore) and was given all sorts of extra learning opportunities, which I adored because I love to read and learn. All I’m trying to illustrate with these stories is that school and academics were nearly effortless for me. I read fast and voraciously, I think quickly and speak easily. I’m naturally intellectually curious and quick. It takes no effort for me.

I spent a lot of my early life feeling quite smug and self-satisfied about this skill, even though I had done little to develop it beyond that which I naturally loved to do--read. I once read (yes, reading again. You know by now that a solid 25% of my sentences start with those three words) an article about reading by author Zadie Smith. I always remember it because it is so reflective of me and my relationship to reading. “I think that if I were a very good swimmer, I would be proud to be so, but being proud of being a reader, in my case, is like being proud you have feet” (from “What It Means to be Addicted to Reading”, published on Oprah.com). It’s the same for me. I was considered “smart” because so much of traditional education depends upon reading and I read with the same effortless abandon and unselfconsciousness as I have feet. But it wasn’t until I read Multiple Intelligences that I realized how unjustified my pride about my intelligence was.

The premise of this book is that there are actually 8 different types of intelligence. The book suggests that everyone has different strengths and learning styles across these areas, but that our modern education system really only focuses on 2 of the 8: linguistic intelligence (of which I perform off the charts) and logical/mathematical (of which I am competent, though not exceptional. The trick for me was that I could speak, write, and memorize so well that I could overcompensate for my personal lack of computing skill in all but the most technical and calculational of assignments. I also very quickly steered my education and later my career away from the areas in which I did not excel). An enormous light bulb went off for me as I read this book. I wasn’t as brilliant as I thought. Or rather, I was, but in just one very lucky area of intelligence that was recognized and celebrated by the world at large. Nearly EVERYONE is brilliant in some way, it’s just that some are celebrated more than others.

I looked up the 8 intelligences just for your reference (but feel free to skip this part and get to where I start talking about you again). They include:

1.    Linguistic Intelligence: This involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals.

2. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: This involves the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically.
3. Spatial Intelligence: This involves the potential to recognize and manipulate the patterns of wide space as well as more confined areas.
4. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: This involves the use of one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems or create products.
5. Musical Intelligence: This involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns.
6. Interpersonal Intelligence: This involves the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, and desires of other people and to work effectively with others.
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: This involves the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears, and motivations.
8. Naturalist Intelligence: This involves the ability to recognize, categorize, and draw upon certain features of the environment.

Here is where this letter starts to be about you. If I have accomplished anything in the writing of this blog, I hope it is to point out that you are remarkable, exceptional, and unbelievably wonderful in so many ways. You literally have a vast array of superpowers at your disposal. The problem is that I don’t believe you trust in your own intelligence. And I want you to know that it is, undeniably and without question, one of your best superpowers.

You. Are. Brilliant.

You’ve managed to maintain an exceptionally high grade point average throughout your high school career, and I fully expect this to continue into college. As I’ve mentioned in describing other superpowers, you are organized and efficient and you take care of business. You are confident enough to speak up and ask for help when you need it, and you always do well when participation or leadership are included in the overall grade. But you are also very smart. You are intelligent in the ways they test and celebrate, and you are intelligent in some of the more unsung of the intelligences. You are smart, and I want you to remember that always. I think you look at others and put yourself below them in this area. You shouldn't. You aren’t a big reader (to my dismay), and you aren’t necessarily drawn to deep intellectual topics. You might not be as book smart as you are street smart but trust me, as someone who excels far more in one (the book kind) than the other (the street kind), both are a true and important measure of a person’s intelligence. Do not overvalue one, particularly when assessing your own capabilities and potential. And don’t undervalue your own book smarts. They’re deeper, and more super, than you realize.

If you were to take a test that evaluated you on all of these 9 intelligences, I believe you would likely score the highest on number 4 (bodily kinesthetic) and number 6 (interpersonal). As we wrap up this testament to all of your superpowers, I hope these are well and deeply celebrated throughout these letters. As we are all inclined to do, however, you will underestimate the value of this intelligence and think everyone has it, but trust me, they don’t. I actually went out and found the book so I could quote verbatim the following description of the depth of bodily kinesthetic intelligence through a description of the myriad calculations required to hit a tennis ball:

In order to anticipate how and where to move the feet and whether to take the racket back on the forehand or backhand side, the brain must calculate within a fraction of a second the moment the ball leaves the server’s racket approximately where it is going to land, and where the racket will intercept it. Into this calculation must be computed the initial velocity of the ball, combined with an input for the progressive decrease in velocity and the effect of wind and of spin, to say nothing of the complicated trajectories involved. Then, each of these factors must be recalculated after the bounce of the ball to anticipate the point where contact will be made by the racket. Simultaneously, muscle orders must be given—not just once, but constantly refined on updated information. Finally, the muscles have to respond in cooperation with one another…contact is made at a precise point that depends on whether the order was given to hit down the line or cross-court, an order not given until after a split second analysis of the movement and balance of the opponent…Even if you are returning the serve of an average player, you will have only about one second. Just to hit the ball is clearly a remarkable feat; to return it with consistency and accuracy is a mind-boggling achievement. Yet it is not uncommon. The truth is that everyone who inhabits a human body possesses a remarkable instrument (Gallwey, 1976, pp. 33-34; Multiple Intelligences 28-30).

So much for our culture’s insistence on the “dumb jock”. Remember this when you want to cast yourself in that role or think that all you can do is play basketball and other sports. Your intelligence goes so much deeper than that.

I also find the current conversation about AI fascinating in the context of what it is likely going to mean for you and your siblings and our collective human future.  On my work from home days, I often dive deeply into the topic (mostly through audio books and podcasts that I can listen to while I catch up on laundry). It is fascinating to me that AI is rapidly closing the gap in communication capabilities, particularly written communication, for so many people. I have been telling people that I can’t really find any good uses for it, yet, but then, I don’t need help crafting a good email which is currently how most of my work colleagues are using it. I also work in the field of new product development for a construction equipment manufacturer so I know that robotics haven’t progressed nearly as far as the pundits and analysts would like us to think. I heard one podcaster comment something like “AI is progressing much faster in the world of language and philosophy than in the world of physics.” In my own fairly rudimentary musings on the topic, it seems there is something inherently and indescribably human about our bodies. It is entirely possible that a profound superpower in the bodily kinesthetic space will be an enormous asset in our AI infiltrated future. An ability to write a good sentence or read prolifically, the current metric for perceived intelligence, will easily be outsourced to a machine and likely in the short term. The way that our bodies move and interact in the world, at least for now, will not.

I think it is safe to say this is equally true for the other intelligence I picked for you. Your interpersonal strength will serve you exceptionally well into your future. Being “smart” about people, or what was popularly described as “Emotional Intelligence” or “EQ”, has widely been recognized as being more predictive of career and monetary success than “IQ” which typically measures the sort of book smarts that schools teach and measure for. I’ve described your knack with friendship and influence repeatedly in these posts, so I won’t bother to linger there again.

The essential point of all my words in this post is this: you are so smart. You are smart in all the ways that matter, and I really hope you never, ever underestimate or forget how truly super you are.