Day 27

Day #27: Reflect on the term "Letting go"

Have you ever physically let something go before? Like dropped a plate of food or accidentally lost hold on a balloon (worst.)? "Letting go" is kind of a load term since really, I can think of a whole list of ways to let go of things both physically and emotionally/spiritually. Ah! Words are silly sometimes. 

My brain typically thinks in pictures though and makes little stories out of pictures so 2 came to my mind when I saw the prompt for today. 

(1) Freshman year of college, I lived 4 floors up from the laundry room and Adam lived 3 floors up from the laundry which meant come time to do laundry (which was a relative thing at best) - us resourceful college kids realized it was way more time efficient (Read: fun) to drop our bags of laundry down the middle of the stairs all the way down to the bottom floor of our building. This usually worked out just great and provided small entertainment that college kids thrive off of. The exception however to this whole plan was the time that Adam let go of his bag of laundry before remembering to take his entire container of laundry detergent out. End result? Let's just say a plastic laundry detergent container did not quite hold up after being dropped 3 stories down onto a concrete floor. What a mess. Funny memory though!

(2) A handful of times so far in my short 23 years of life I have had the opportunity to teach people how to ride a bike. One of these times, was working with the youngest of my brothers. The whole event of convincing a tiny person that it makes sense for them to want to propel themselves faster and faster so that they can balance easier is really quite something. 

My bike warrior for the afternoon. 

I mean seriously - think back to when you first learned how to ride a bike if you can - the whole feeling of wobbling and knowing that any second you could be sent flying onto the hard unforgiving ground is just not the most comforting feeling to experience. So the whole fact that achieving balance on a two-wheeler requires a healthy dose of forward focus, bravery, and speed is really asking a lot of someone who still probably needs help putting toothpaste on their own toothbrush.

Regardless of the ridiculousness, riding a bike without training wheels is also something of a growing-up rite of passage. 

SO at the end of a summer before going back to college a couple of years ago I was determined to help teach my (logically) terrified brother how to ride his bike. Whew. What an afternoon . Lots of pep talks, strategizing, explanation, awkward bent over walk/running...falls. All of which builds towards moment after moment where we work closer and closer towards me letting go of the back of his bike. 

Yup, that happened a lot. Notice brother #4 standing off to the side looking kinda skeptical of this whole
"learning how to ride a bike and trusting my sister to teach me" thing!

In case you have never learned how to ride a bike or been in any way around someone who has - Basic strategy here is: Hold the underside of the bike seat firmly which gives some feeling of stability to the person riding the bike, allows you (the seat holder) to have some reasonable amount of steering control, and succeeds in you not being in the line of sight of the learning bike rider should (when!) you choose to let go. Read: they might not realize you're not holding on right away, out of sight out of mind right?

Well, my brother is strapping his helmet back on and I'm clearly trying to think of a new plan.

So that's basically it - eventually there is more letting go happening and less holding on. Letting go with my brother's training scenario was really hard sometimes because if I let go and he fell - he had the tendency to get really upset and take it out on me or second guess himself on his own progress. Hello, we are human and I don't think anyone really actually likes to fail?! Holding on was way easier to want to do at the beginning of our afternoon together because my brother really was not ready for me to even think about letting go (and let's face it, I wasn't either). BUT there is a turning point, where holding on becomes harder than just sucking it up and letting go. Once my brother started feeling more confident and peddling faster - holding onto his seat and crouching and running all at the same time without getting my shins attacked by his bike wheel was increasingly challenging. Best solution? To let go. He was ready (even if he didn't realize it) and me holding on was going to hurt both of us. 

Teamwork :)

I guess that my personal reflection in all of this - practically speaking - is that holding on AND letting go are always going to be options. Life is messy. Letting go of anything can be a moment filled with fear or hope - or maybe even both at the same time. Holding on can be the same way. Praying God grants me wisdom to do both.