Letting Go
I’m seven years old. I’m in the deep end of a swimming pool, small wet hands fastened on to the pool ladder. My instructor bends over.
“Let go,” she says.
“I will,” I tell her.
“Let go now.”
I pull one hand away from the rung. I want to move my other hand, but I cannot.
“You know how to swim already,” she says. “Just let go.”
I do know how to swim. I’ve been practising every day in the shallow end and I can manage several lengths without stopping. But this is the deep end, and I’m not ready to let go.
I’m thirteen years old. As usual I am the last one to finish my math test. All those numbers they just don’t make any sense, they seem like a contrast of everything I don’t know how to deal with, all those problems, all of those questions, the tricky ones, the easy ones. I look at my test, it is blank. Completely blank. I had two hours and I couldn’t manage to do one.
“Time is over.” The teacher says.
I frown, “Please, you have to understand, I know I can do it I just need more time!”
She gives me a sad smile, “I can’t, sweetie.”
My eyes are full of water so I beg “Please.”
“I said it is over, please hand me your test.” She says again, a little louder, a little more intimidating, “You need to let go.”
I do know math. I’ve been doing all the exercises day and night, I pay attention to all of the classes and I am even seeing a tutor. But this is too much pressure and I can’t handle. She takes my test away and I feel so ashamed. I wasn’t ready to let go.
I am eighteen. The room is excruciatingly quiet as both of us think of what to say next. He is the first to muster up what is left of his strength to keep fighting for us to bitterly utter the following words: “You know, the world doesn’t revolve around you. You can’t expect everyone to love or even care about you.”
The hurt in my face is instantaneous. I press my mouth into a thin sliver, furrow my eyebrows and scrunch my nose at the tip, looking like every ounce of happiness I had left was drained from my body. I refuse to look up at him, but he could sense regardless that I had tears welling up in my eyes; that something behind the words he said pierced a soft spot in my heart.
When I finally look up, our eyes met, his glazed over and mine with an overwhelming sadness to them, with tears building up, threatening to escape at any moment. I fight to hold back sobs so I can say what I’d been waiting to for so long.
“Don’t you get it by now? I don’t want everyone in the world to love me. I want you to love me.” I am bawling now, with a look to my countenance hinting that whatever is to come next will break me like glass. “And it’s clear to me now more than ever that you don’t anymore.”
He looks down, “It is over. I am sorry.”
“You were always the one that I wanted,” I say, trying to avoid his eyes that always remind me of a morning cup of coffee spotted with flecks of gold. “But whenever I gave you any sort of hint about my utter adoration towards you, you didn’t even flinch. You never seemed to reciprocate what I so strongly felt for you, so I have to let go. Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t keep holding onto something that just isn’t holding you back.”
I knew it wouldn’t work out. I knew, deep in the cell of my heart that we just weren’t meant to be and that I couldn’t, even if I wanted, to force him to stay, to make him love me, when he just didn’t. So I let him go. And again, I wasn’t ready.
I’m twenty three. I walk up to him, hands shaking, palms sweaty, heart beating louder with each step I take. He smiles at me, but I am speechless. I know what I want, but I don’t know if I am ready.
It fells like time stopped. Everything is a blur except for him. All I can see is those hazel eyes looking down at me, and the way his lashes curls up in the most adorable way, how the skin around his eyes are crinkling as his grin grew wider, and the way that little birthmark by his nose makes his face seem whole.
I hug him. He wraps his arms around my waist and I around his neck; He engulf me in his warmth and scent, so sweet and crisp. He is strong, but is holding me so gently, like I am a fragile piece of glass that he would never want to break. Like he is so scared of letting go of me because just like me, he hates to let go.
I never wanted him to pull away. But eventually, he did, and again I look up at those hazel eyes. But this time, I am not speechless. I am not shaking or sweaty. I am calm, I am happy. I am ready.
“I love you,” I whisper with a smile, and he smiles right back.
You know how my swimming instructor got me to let go of the edge?
She grabbed my hands and threw me into the deep end. I was so angry I could have screamed, and so afraid I wanted to cry. But it turns out I did know how to swim.
And now, I do know how to love. So I am ready to let go of my fears, insecurities and doubts, and swim deeper.
