A New Year, A New Story

On throwing intentions out the window

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Happy New Year’s Eve friends!

I wonder if you have a New Year’s tradition. Do you watch the ball drop? Do you eat appetizers? Do you play games?

Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash

In our family, we do what any respectable family does on New Year’s Eve. We throw things off our 2^nd floor balcony. This Italian tradition symbolizes getting rid of old ghosts. In Italy, they throw old pots, pans, clothes, appliances, even furniture out the window as a reminder to let go of past unhappiness and make room for new unhappiness.

We have Americanized this tradition, and we often throw something off the balcony that signifies our intention. When the kids were little, they threw out their cloth diapers, clean I promise, when the goal was potty training. They threw books out when the goal was learning to read. In a way, we were teaching them how to set an intention.

For years, I have tossed a pencil off the balcony to signify my commitment to writing. Dan often throws out a watch to symbolize his intention to try and be more present. As we age, we recognize that change doesn’t happen overnight. Rather, if we want to make positive change, it takes steady, conscious, consistent effort. I like how Katherine May puts it when she writes, “real change doesn’t look like big, splashy acts of willpower, but instead more like small adjustments, repeated until they feel ordinary, and seismic shifts that are entirely beyond our control.”

I will probably still throw out a pencil tonight. I like how this act honors my commitment to writing and the integral role it plays in my wellness and in my life. However, this year I find myself reflecting on the original intent of this tradition before we Americanized it. It wasn’t an aspiration to do more or to be more. It was an invitation to let go.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty bad at letting go.  

My youngest is 13, but it was only a few months ago that I threw out my breast pump. For a period of time, when we were trying for a third, I kept hoping I would get to use it again. When I reached the point where I realized this wouldn’t happen, I still couldn’t part with it. Basements can be real enablers.

In September, I read a piece by Danusha Laméris called “The Give-Away Basket, Holding on, Letting Go.”

If only some force could appear and help us do the same with our lives, to sort what is needed and what we can let go of, label the remaining contents on a scale of importance, suggesting uses we may not have thought of. I suppose there are people who help with this: coaches, therapists and the like. But at the end of the day, no organizational consultant can take the place of our own inner commitment to knowing when it’s time to let go: of a dish, a line of a poem, a sweater, a relationship. Even to let go of that which is already gone. Youth, for example­­––it’s dozens of irreplicable markers and abilities. The way we can choose to accept the inevitable or unfixable. When my nephew was little, he would have a growth spurt and be super skinny, then kind of pause and fill out a little, then start over again. In his reedy stage, I used to chase him around and catch him, then squeeze and say “We gotta love what’s left!” How do we love what’s left? How do we let go of what we don’t need?

Danusha’s words stuck with me. They gave me the courage to go down to my basement which clearly had been holding me back for years and dig out the dust covered breast pump. It was, as you can probably imagine a 13-year-old breast pump would be, pretty gross. I quickly realized that even I wouldn’t want to use it again if presented with the opportunity.

Inside the backpack though, I found two glass baby bottles, one for each of my children. I turned them into little flower vases to remind me of my commitment to letting go and loving “what’s left.”

Letting go allows us to make space for something new rather than clinging to a story that no longer serves us. This Christmas, my family and I watched Home Alone. The jokes, the story line, the plot… all held up pretty well. The next night, we tried to recreate the experience and watch Home Alone 2. The jokes, the story line, the plot… all fell short. It’s an apt metaphor for what happens when we can’t let go and insist on sticking to the same story. It’s not good, and even Catherine O’Hara, can’t change that.

Letting go of the stories that no longer serve us, and embracing new stories is powerful and life giving. Sometimes we can’t see the new story until we are willing to part with the old.

Sometimes this new thing is tangible, and sometimes it is more of an idea that we hold in our heart. My glass vases remind me that while I am no longer a mother of young children, I still have an important part to play. My role as a mother hasn’t diminished, but rather it has expanded.

Robin Wall Kimmerer poses the question in Braiding Sweetgrass, “What does a good mother do when mothering time is done?” According to Robin, she continues to mother. To mother is to dedicate your life to healing, to the healing of self, to the healing of others, to the healing of the earth.

“A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of life’s beings can flourish.”

As a mom of teenagers, there is still lots of mothering to do within my home. It just looks different than it did when the kids were little. In a way, parenting teenagers is a constant lesson in letting go. I must trust that I have equipped my kids with enough love, empathy and practical skills for them to forge their path. I must step back and let them navigate their lives while figuring out new ways to support them that don’t stifle or suffocate. I get it right sometimes.

Tonight, I will throw out my pencil. I will celebrate all that writing has given to me and my commitment to continue to carve out space for myself. This year, I will also be throwing out something else, something I have wrestled from my co-dependent basement, something that reminds me to let go.

I invite you to join me in the toss. Search your spaces this January, and see what odds and ends you find. Share your treasures here in the comments, the weirder the better, and then let them go. Sit in the empty space, and see what happens.

Here’s to letting go. Here’s to loving what’s left. Here’s to making room for what’s to come.  

I would love to continue this conversation in the comments. What resonates with you today? What is an intention on your heart? What ghosts are you saying goodbye to this year? What are you hoping to welcome in instead? What weird item did you hold onto for way too long?

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