Letting Go

Golden Gate Bridge - June 11, 2022

​Let Go: to set free.
-Collins Dictionary

We stand on the Golden Gate Bridge, wind whipping our hair, giggling and taking silly selfies. It is June but cold enough to shiver despite our warm layers. This was not my idea, to walk to the other side and back again, but I’m glad my daughter Charlotte wanted to. Thick fog is on the move, swirling above and around us, sometimes retreating so we catch a glimpse of sienna cliffs on one side of the bridge, and the white city buildings in miniature on the other. The jade-slate surface of the water far below is unyielding, but the scent in our nostrils gives away the life it holds: salty, tangy, faintly fishy. We break into a run on the way back, moving easily, lightly, feeling the heat in our limbs, and hearing our feet hitting the solid bridge with satisfying little slaps.

The orange vermilion Golden Gate Bridge spans the Golden Gate Strait, the narrow body of water linking the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The bridge took over four years to build. When it was officially opened on May 27, 1937, its 4,200 foot suspension span was the longest span in the world. Our mini-adventure across this iconic landmark was fitting - it was Charlotte’s first time in San Francisco, and we were in the midst of a ten-day, 3000-mile road trip to look at colleges. And now we have another milestone: Charlotte’s 18th birthday is in three days, on March 17, St. Patty’s Day.

She is ready. She has embraced life in its entirety: school, work, friends, climbing, tennis, hiking and skiing. She is fascinated by the natural world; environmental science and orienteering courses through Colorado Mountain College (CMC) have deepened her passion. She has plenty of college options from which to choose. She is supported, resourced, self-reliant and excited about her future. For Charlotte, stepping into 18 and out of Steamboat Springs is an open door of new learning and opportunity. 

But Charlotte is aware that she is also letting go. Teachers who’ve been mentors, dear friends she’s grown up with, newer friends from work and CMC, and this mountain town which has been home for over ten years. Like the monkey bars at the playground when she was little, she must let go of the rung she’s grasping in order to proceed to the next one. 

I too feel that bittersweet mixture of melancholy and excitement. Charlotte is the most amazing human I know. In intention and deed she is a person I am tremendously proud of. I am humbled and inspired by what she takes on and how she goes about accomplishing it, and am eager to see what the years ahead hold. And yet, with this official marker of adulthood, a sense of loss is with me most days, a sadness that has taken up residence in my heart. It seems to me that a momentous era in both of our lives is done, and is now set irrevocably in the past. Though logically I understand that she will not be a young child again, her turning 18 makes that fact somehow more solid, more permanent. 

As her birthday draws closer, memories pop up with increasing frequency. It is La Galerie de Charlotte inside my skull, hung with myriad photos of Charlotte moments. My mind’s eye spotlights one, then another and another - I don’t ever run out. I am so very thankful for that.

There is two-year-old Charlotte grinning, plopped on top of her crunchy leaf-nest of orange, gold and burgundy, throwing handfuls of leaves into the air to watch them float back down. Seven-year-old Charlotte skiing the High Noon trees, whooping up and down the little rises and drops, laughing as I barrel along trying to keep her in sight. Eight-year-old Charlotte walking in the June-green Botanic Park, holding my hand and looking up at me with her open face, soft smile, calm golden-brown eyes. Seventeen-year-old Charlotte standing tall, throwing her arms up and out, reveling in the vastness of sky and mountain while climbing our first Fourteener. 
 
All of the experiences - the smells, colors, and sounds - make our relationship tangible and whole. It is hard for me to let go of the past years. It isn’t just letting go of the memories, but also the mother I thought I should be, and the mother that I actually was. It is hard to let go of this rung on the monkey bars and move to the next one, though I will do so. It is inevitable. 

In some ways marking this birthday is like being high up on the Golden Gate Bridge, pausing right in the center to take it all in. From this vantage point we can see where we’ve been - all the way back to 9:00pm on Friday, March 17, 2006, when Charlotte first came into the world.

We can also see, in every direction, the possibilities. The fog will roll in, cold and damp, obscuring the view for a bit. Then it will recede, offering that glimpse of warm red earth and blue sky. The scent of the water below will hint at what may be under the surface, unseen for now. There is so much, forward and backward and right here, that this pause holds, and all of it involves a letting go. A letting go of the past, a letting go of the idea of exactly how the future will be. In the letting go, there is simply the freedom to move towards what is next, one step at a time.

---

Mt. Sherman - August 26, 2023