The T\ruth About Letting Go

A woman recounts a story that showed her how much power she actually has over her life.

Letting go is a choice—and honestly, it’s easy to do it.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t realize how easy it was.

Being the youngest of three, I am blessed in the sense that my parents had done the parenting thing twice already by the time I arrived & let go of being strict.

My oldest brother let go of his avoidant attachment style when he realized he wasn’t in marine training, aka thinking he needed to start acting like the man of the house. Our dad is present & well…

My older sister let go of thinking she needs to be a doctor because all of her friends are. Since making that switch she’s only a third of a bitch.

And me. I let go of thinking my dreams were out of reach. Now, I’m soaking in my bathtub in my condo in Soho, New York.

When I was younger, I don't think I knew how to let go of anything. I held on to old gaming systems, pens with no ink, grudges, you name it.

Gradually, I grew out of this, regulated my emotions, adjusted my bad habits, and let go of the person I outgrew.

It all started when I made the abrupt decision to move to New York City from Alpharetta, Georgia. Atlanta is one of the top places creatives like myself go in the South. Everyone asked why I wouldn’t just go there, but it’s because I’m not meant to be there. I knew I was meant to be in New York, even though I’d never even visited before moving. Something about this place makes me tingle, and I knew just by looking at the name on the map.

The first person I told was my best friend, Ella. We’d been best friends for a decade before we stopped talking.

She was chosen family. We traveled to six countries together, called each other’s parents “mom and dad”, and even went on trips with both families. I thought we’d be in each other’s lives forever, but we’re not.

I had a rule to never share my [negative] opinions on any of my friend’s relationships until I knew for certain it was over. But I broke my rule.

Ella and Michael seemed like the perfect couple, but I started having reservations when they decided they wanted to go from long-distance boyfriend/girlfriend to a married couple living together. No in-between.

Ella is the type to prioritize romantic love over her well-being, which is probably why she was compensated with a stacked roster during her explorative [hoe] phase. Even when some guys treated her so badly that the embarrassment of going back outweighed her feelings for them, she still kept putting herself out there to find the partnership she desired.

I always admired that about her. She let go of friends, men, and even an old pet that didn’t align with her at that point in her life. Until the day finally when it was our time to let go.

In November, about a year ago, Ella finally took off the happy wife, happy life mask. She wasn’t happy, she couldn’t even hide it. Her marriage was falling apart and her idea of perfect love was crushed yet again.

Ella never once spoke ill of Michael. In fact, she had nothing but kind words to say. However, her actions told a different story. She would roll her eyes behind his back and seem annoyed most times he talked to her. But this wasn’t the case when they were long-distance.

Being long-distance, she didn’t have to be around Michael…ever. She got as much alone time as she needed, and the problems one goes through while living with a partner, like having to clean up after them, didn’t exist. Naively, she thought they were going to live together happily ever after.

I could tell Ella wasn’t that happy, but I felt like prying would only make the situation worse. When Ella finally spilled her guts that day in November, I had to spill mine too. My best friend was a shell of a person and I just had to let it ride [until that day in November]. This made her feel comfortable enough to open up to me—but my openness closed her right back up.

She exposed him as being an egotistical control freak who only cared about himself, stonewalling her after she brought up issues, and would discuss their fights with his friends right in front of her. I told her that was bat shit crazy…because that was batshit crazy, and that they should probably see a therapist if they wanted to work through that.

Her fear of being stonewalled outweighed her hope for couples therapy, so she secluded back into her happy wife, happy life bubble.

Our phone calls got shorter and shorter, and the distance between when we spoke grew longer.

I remember the last day we spoke. She talked about the job that she hated, drinking wine to fall asleep, and even told me if my ex-boyfriend spun the block again I should give him another try.

She doesn’t know this, but I was forced to let go of that man when he unwarrantedly told me he had a crush on two of my girlfriends, one being her, but “it’s okay because they don’t live in our state”.

Not to mention, my friends don’t even look like me.

When she said that, I knew I’d outgrown our friendship. She condoned me going back to a trashy situation because she was in one. She didn’t think I should be built up because she let someone knock her down.

Just like that, we got off the phone and have never called each other since.

The ‘letting go’ was pretty easy, staying gone was a more difficult task, but every day I made a conscious choice to make room for the friends who were on my new level.

---

This was likely the start of me [quickly] finding peace with letting go. I realized how innate it is to settle into a path where the outcome is known. But I also realized how possible it is to change paths when one is outgrown.

Just like my parents, brother, and sister, we’ve learned to change lanes to arrive at our desired destination.

I let go of the idea that I needed roommates to live in New York.

I had a roommate crash out when I called her out for not helping with the household goods. That bitch loved chaos, and that’s why I had to let her go even while she was still living in the room next door.

I even let go of my old phone number when I realized how much access my old life had to me.

Maybe, through all of my heartbreak, friendship breakups, and the curveballs of life, it was all orchestrated to teach me to let go.

Maybe my parents held me too much as a child, and the anxious attachment style that I developed was a ploy to teach me that anxiety is only a figment of my imagination.

Maybe 99% of most people’s problems are self-inflicted—and walking around with a constant guard up is destroying the ability to connect.

Maybe life unfolds exactly how it’s meant to and we’re all left to choose to move on or be held back.

Well, I choose to let go. I choose to maintain conviction, even when the life I’m living hasn’t yet aligned with my dreams. I choose to never settle. I choose to know who I am. I choose to stay clear on what I want and if something comes along that isn’t that—I choose me.

It’s just that easy.

I’ve found it hard to be surrounded by people who don’t live like this. And when I let them go I have room for the people who are like me. The people who know their greatness already exists even before they’re soaking in their bathtub in their condo in Soho.

It’s the people who let go of what the eyes can see to keep striving for what they know they’re capable of. I became one of those people.

I chose to let go—and honestly, life’s been easy ever since.