When I was a little girl, I had a blue blanket. My mother
was brilliant. She bought a large pale
blue blanket for a king sized bed then cut it down into four separate pieces,
binding the edges to make four, smaller separate sized blankets.
I didn’t carry it around with me everywhere. Mostly, a slept
with it beside my pillow, turning and tossing it around so that my cheek would
rest on the coolest part of the fabric.
It was my comfort thing, the one thing I wanted in bed with me but not
needed. I don’t remember taking it with me
when I spent the night at a friend’s place or stayed at my aunt’s or even went
away to summer camp. But it was there, a
part of my bed, for many years. It wasn’t
until I left home that I left the blanket altogether and, even then, I didn’t
leave it right away.
Maybe letting go of home was the first step to letting go of
this remnant from my childhood. Is that
where and how it begins? We reach an age—or
maybe, really, it’s a turning point—and we put away the things we’ve
outgrown. The problem is too often the
only way I seem to let go of anything is when I am convinced, on some level, I
have outgrown it or perhaps that it has outgrown its usefulness to me. Especially how I feel or think about things,
people, circumstances. I hold onto how I’ve
felt and what I’ve thought for so long, far beyond the point when what I feel
and think no longer serve me in any way.
It may be hard to tell, but this blog post is a step in
letting go. I still want to rest my
cheek against something soft and cool, my eyes closed. But I think it’s time to let go, time for me
to grow up.
