Letting Go

My natural impulse is to be in control. Letting go is as challenging as jumping off the edge of a cliff without a parachute. My family lived within ten miles of what used to be the longest rim-to-rim bridge in the USA. The Perrine Memorial Bridge, near where Evil Kenevil attempted to make a flying motorcycle leap from one side to the other back in 1974. Since we lived in a small town on the north side of the Snake River Canyon, we often drove over to visit my grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins on the other side. The bridge was an accepted fact in our lives. In fact. my sisters, brothers and I rode the school bus every week day to the Catholic school on the south side.


Inevitably, once or twice a year, the local paper featured news of someone's suicidal jump from the bridge. Since it was about a mile to the river below, death was certain. In my childhood nightmares, I was either pushed, had accidentally fallen or taken a flying leap from that same bridge. The image of leaping or falling from bridges has become hardwired into the metaphorical folklore of my life.


Leaping from/or falling from bridges is the vision that comes to my mind whenever I thing about Letting Go.
When threatened by the necessity of Letting Go, after I've been clinging until I'm white-knuckled to whatever rut is is I need to move beyond, I see myself hanging from the handrails of the bridge. At the point when I can hang on no longer, I am forced to loosen my death grip and let myself drop. To this day, I have never hit bottom, even in my dreams. 


Strangely enough, a sense of relief and often a simple solution comes first. Even though I laugh at myself when I catch myself repeatedly clinging-until-I'm-green-in-the-face to whatever security I've latched onto in the moment, I still have hopes that I'll one day simply let go much sooner.