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 Those things had been replaced by talking about pop music and wanting to see a lot of the same movies and less being asked of Joan in the taking care of her.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.