You only lose what you cling to

It happened gradually, then all at once. One day she was standing in the kitchen, telling us about her graduation event; the next, her room was hers only in theory – a curated museum of the life she lived here. Her childhood, frozen in boxes, drawers, notebooks, and the corners of the closet she forgot to empty. I saw her old dolls; I laughed, and I cried. Both in the same breath.

Each object was a tether to a memory, some joyful, some painful. What struck me most wasn’t just the passage of time, but the intensity with which life had been lived in those little moments: fragments of childhood both fleeting and eternal. 

Her room was a love letter, one she might want to read whenever she returns; and return she will, in footsteps or phone calls, in laughter over meals during holidays, in stories that start with “Remember when…”

And then came the hardest part: deciding what to keep and what to let go. There is no manual for letting go of the people you raised, no single moment that says, “It’s time now.”

Instead, there is a room, a quiet Saturday, and a choice to either mourn what was or honour it and then gently let it go. “We’ve done our part,” I thought. She’s living her story now. This bittersweet gravity pulled me forward.

In the space our children leave behind when they leave for college or work, there is room for something unexpected: a softening… first acknowledging that purpose has been served, second honouring it, and then releasing it. 

This letting go extends to other facets of our life. Holding on feels safe, but releasing things at the right time, once the purpose has been served, is liberating. You have to trust that the universe will provide, that everything is and will continue to unfold as it should. Letting go is not forcefully pushing things away but relinquishing control, contraction, yearning, and resistance.

There is power in surrender; it frees you and also whatever and whoever it is you’re letting go. Freedom is a prerequisite for peace and happiness. In letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but trust that you will find yourself and what really matters in the future. 

The world begins to soften because you have.