Just let it go. . .
Saturday, while I was driving home from the gym, I realized it was missing. I had my cell phone pressed to my right ear, making plans to watch football with a new, shall we say, man of interest. My foot slammed on the break, car horns behind me honked in annoyance -- and deservingly so, because I was stopped at a bright green light.
****
The morning of the day I graduated college, my grandfather pulled a blue velvet box out of his jacket pocket and pushed it across the breakfast table. We got you a little something, he says. My grandmother, over my shoulder as I open the box, assures me, they're real, as my grandfather glows with pride over how happy he is to live to see this day.
For as long as I could remember, my grandfather was dying. When I was seven, he had quadruple heart bypass surgery and when I was eight, a heart transplant. When I was ten, he had three-fourths of his right lung removed and finally had to stop smoking. He was always dying, so for my entire academic life, every report card laden with B's and not A's I brought home, every seal of approval over sports or musical theater endeavors -- everything lead to this day, one that I always knew we would share.
****
These earrings, they weren't really much of anything -- the diamonds, so tiny you could barely tell if they were even diamonds at all. But from the moment I put them in my ears that morning, I seldom took them off, and even less frequently in the last few years.
Every once in a while, one earring would get caught in a shirt and I would later find it on the floor.Not too long ago, I watched the shiny yellow and white gold ring swirl in a current of suds down the drain of the tub. I fell to the porcelain, crying, clamoring, my dog barking and scratching at the bathroom door.
I could have turned the car around and gone back to the gym, after all, it's only five miles away. Instead, I went to the grocery store, went home and made lunch, showered and dressed pretty in pink to visit my new boy (gigantic space) friend. It wasn't until Monday night that I went into the gym and rifled through a shoe box the pimply-faced kid at the front desk called the "lost-and-found." But still, no earring.
Driving home, I remembered my grandfather. The day he gave me the earrings, the day we lay him to rest in the dirt, how haunted I was in his passing and how I made my peace with his absence. I let him go but kept him with me, feeling him all around me, knowing I could speak to him and knowing he would guide me. He had sent me signs and omens before, and lately, with the hollowness of holidays, I was speaking to him again. More specifically, I had been asking him for a sign -- a beacon in this dark passing year, full of heartache, sudden dismissal, and hope lost. Halfway through though tunnel and barely glimpsing passing flashes of light, I searched for a promise, like any six year old child would with an imaginary friend -- I wanted to know everything would be all right.
It began to come clear. I had let go. It's funny that I would arrive at this place but perhaps this was the sign. In a year that was haunted by that phrase murmured behind tears, twelve months of doubting my choices, my intuition, as the very heart of it, myself -- I let go.
Letting go can come in different forms. Sometimes we are like monkeys -- letting go of one branch yet clinging fastly to another. Other instances, its a tiny dying, like the loss of childhood innocence. These moments, we lie to ourselves, carry ourselves through the black. There are times we will stand on barstools and cheer of freedom, but still speak to memories in a half-empty cocktail or beer. We will tell our girlfriends in whispers in corners that it's over, that we have moved on, and still wake at six in the morning, expecting the phone to ring. The truth in it though, is that when you've really let go, when you've really gone there's no grandstand, no declaration, no new par amour at your side. Real letting go has no need for words at all. It's an act of pure silence.
It's only when we have truly let something go that it can be found again. Five days later, watching television, my dog begins to dig at the cushion of the couch. Expecting to find her bone, I stick my hand down in the crack, and instead pull out a shiny sparkling earring.
****
I could have turned the car around and gone back to the gym, after all, it's only five miles away. Instead, I went to the grocery store, went home and made lunch, showered and dressed pretty in pink to visit my new boy (gigantic space) friend. It wasn't until Monday night that I went into the gym and rifled through a shoe box the pimply-faced kid at the front desk called the "lost-and-found." But still, no earring.
Driving home, I remembered my grandfather. The day he gave me the earrings, the day we lay him to rest in the dirt, how haunted I was in his passing and how I made my peace with his absence. I let him go but kept him with me, feeling him all around me, knowing I could speak to him and knowing he would guide me. He had sent me signs and omens before, and lately, with the hollowness of holidays, I was speaking to him again. More specifically, I had been asking him for a sign -- a beacon in this dark passing year, full of heartache, sudden dismissal, and hope lost. Halfway through though tunnel and barely glimpsing passing flashes of light, I searched for a promise, like any six year old child would with an imaginary friend -- I wanted to know everything would be all right.
It began to come clear. I had let go. It's funny that I would arrive at this place but perhaps this was the sign. In a year that was haunted by that phrase murmured behind tears, twelve months of doubting my choices, my intuition, as the very heart of it, myself -- I let go.
Letting go can come in different forms. Sometimes we are like monkeys -- letting go of one branch yet clinging fastly to another. Other instances, its a tiny dying, like the loss of childhood innocence. These moments, we lie to ourselves, carry ourselves through the black. There are times we will stand on barstools and cheer of freedom, but still speak to memories in a half-empty cocktail or beer. We will tell our girlfriends in whispers in corners that it's over, that we have moved on, and still wake at six in the morning, expecting the phone to ring. The truth in it though, is that when you've really let go, when you've really gone there's no grandstand, no declaration, no new par amour at your side. Real letting go has no need for words at all. It's an act of pure silence.
****
It's only when we have truly let something go that it can be found again. Five days later, watching television, my dog begins to dig at the cushion of the couch. Expecting to find her bone, I stick my hand down in the crack, and instead pull out a shiny sparkling earring.
