New Year's Eve.
Somewhere, a long time ago, I remember reading that the only fear we humans are born with is the fear of falling. I always found that interesting – the idea that we apparently have to be taught all of our other fears.
Upon closer thought, however, I wonder if we could more accurately reclassify that inherent fear of falling as the fear of "letting go." (Typically, if you don't let go, you don't fall.)
This idea actually began to form in my mind after a very small and self-centered occurrence a week or so ago: I got my hair cut. I finally said "good-bye" to a long-familiar part of myself in the form of a 10-inch ponytail. Admittedly, something as trivial as getting one's hair cut shouldn't be a life-altering experience. But it did make me more aware of this whole frightening thing of "letting go."
Sophie, my wonderful mixed-breed red-headed dog understands what I mean. She loves playing fetch. She loves the throwing part, the chasing part, the catching part, even the returning part. But then there's the "letting go" part. Not so easy. You can see it in her eyes – she wants so much to enjoy the whole experience again, but just can't make herself let go of the ball to enable it to be re-thrown.
Most of us can look in the backs of our closets and the bottoms of our sock drawers and in at least one of our desk drawers and relate to that feeling of not being able to "let go" of those small tangible bits of our lives.
There are, of course, much larger "letting go" issues in life. Saying good-bye to loved ones, to homes we have known, to friends who no longer share our daily experience.
Other fears of "letting go" may be more obtuse: I think part of the reason why I'm carrying around a bit of extra weight is that I just don't want to "let go" of the enjoyment of eating. Who wants to let go of chocolate? Or Christmas cookies? I also don't look forward to the idea of letting go of the comfort of sitting on the sofa and watching old movies.
Today in church, our minister talked about the gifts that the wise men brought to the baby Jesus. She compared the gifts to those we can still offer up in our faith today. She suggested that those gifts of the old kings could be translated into modern-day terms to mean everything from personal talents to old grudges.
What a lovely new way of looking at "letting go," I thought. Gather up all that talent and ability you've been saving, and let it go out as a wonderful gift to the world. Pool together your love and affection, and let it go to wash over someone who needs it. Acknowledge an old grudge or hurt, stop protecting and polishing it, and just let it go.
I'm helping Sophie get over her fear of letting go by offering her a second ball every time she returns the first one. You can't enjoy a spiffy new ball experience without letting go of the old one, we're learning.
I'm thinking my new short haircut now deserves a buff new body under it. So maybe letting go of the ponytail will turn out to be the first step in letting go of the cookies (but please, not all of the chocolate) and at least some of the time on the couch.
I'll do what I can with the talent thing. Hugs have never been hard for me to "let go" of, so I'll just have to keep that up. Hurts to my heart, my ego, my pride, I've decided I'll take to the edge of the old year, and then just let go.
But I suspect that letting go of the fear of letting go will be the most freeing experience of all. After all, according to the experts, I've been carrying that one around with me since birth.