Letting Go

Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. I have found this quote to become somewhat of a life motto for me. I discovered it during a breakup, but now as I ride this wave I realize it is helpful even in these moments. My hands must release their grip on my surfboard. I am afraid to let go, I am afraid my legs won’t hold me steady. It is good to let go. I stand up cautiously, keeping a generous bend in my knees, my stomach muscles squeezing. In letting go I find new strength. 

I bring my board back to the sand, letting my friends know I need some water. I jog back to our cooler already feeling the soreness in my muscles. But instead of making it twenty yards to our beach spot I smack into slick, salty tanned skin. I saw a lot of stomach, I know I saw black swim trunks, and a mop of wet hair. For a brief moment we are tangled limbs mixed with oofs and sorries. 

That voice clicks in my head with a thousand memories and it just can’t be. There is absolutely no way. 

His hands grasp my shoulders to stand us both upright and stable. I just went from thirsty to parched. The cooler with our ice cold water suddenly seems unattainable. I almost wish I could reverse the clock, and trudge out of that water three seconds later. 

My eyes lock on his jade green eyes and I’m shoved back to eighteen months ago.

February, 2021. 

His hands brush through my blonde hair and he softly kisses my forehead. I don’t let my mind believe what my heart knows he is about to say. We haven’t been okay for a very long time. The emotional part of my brain tells me we can work this out. We can move forward. Everything will be okay. I need him. He needs me. But the obnoxious logical, reasoning portion of my brain also tells me I need him. He needs me. That is where we begin and end. 

He has become my sole focus. My decisions, my actions are so mirrored to his I don’t even know what choices I would make apart from him, and everything he does is done out of fear to please me. What started out so innocent became toxic for both of us and we no longer know how to separate our actions from trust or fear or need or desire. I hate when my logical side beats my emotional side. Regardless of knowing this isn’t working anymore, that doesn’t mean my feelings have changed for him. We’ve been together for three years. Enough said. 

“Soph, we can’t do this anymore.”

I knew it was coming but that doesn’t stop the crash and burn that follows. I ask him to leave my house. No other words are exchanged. My heart has shattered in my chest and I have no kind words to say. No begging, no groveling, no convincing would save us at this point. 

In the hours, days, weeks, and months that followed tears would come no matter how hard I tried to keep them in. I would be sitting in my college classes and would need to excuse myself as hot tears pooled in my eyes. Breathing felt painful. Laughing didn’t even feel like an option. It was too painful to even say the words to my family so I ignored them as best as I could. I was certain he was my future and then instantly he wasn’t. I was embarrassed to admit I had failed, that maybe we weren’t soul mates after all, that we wouldn’t be high school sweethearts. It was painful, utterly painful to release the image I had of my future with him. 

And I never knew a broken heart could be so. Freaking. Painful. There were days when my heart felt like a punching bag, other days when it felt like someone shoved their hand inside my chest cavity and squeezed with every ounce of strength they had, but most days it was like my heart simply didn’t know how to beat anymore- like it was dying and desperately needed a drug to revive it. I needed him but feeling this pain was a reminder that needing him wasn’t a good thing. I was like an addict going through withdrawal. 

This isn’t to say it was all bad. Actually, what we had was really good, but along the way we got too tangled up in each other. What we really needed was to know we didn’t need each other. 

Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. My roommate wrote this quote on our bathroom mirror over and over again.

So after two months of wallowing I decided it was time to move on. I plastered smiles on, I forced laughter, I went to school, I went to work. Eventually breathing got easier, and my heart didn’t feel like a dead weight anymore. I went out with friends again. I finally told my family we were no longer together. 

I moved to San Diego after I graduated from the University of Washington. I became an athletic trainer for the University of San Diego basketball teams. I learned to surf, I made new friends, I got better at hiking, I learned how to cook some pretty decent meals, I discovered my love for wine, I fell in love with books. I lived again but better. I let go of him, and I found a new strength inside of me. 

And then I bumped into him. 

August, 2023. 

“Soph?” My name rolls off his tongue in a whisper, wrapped up in tenderness like he is replaying the last time we saw each other.

All I’ve wondered for the past year and a half is if it was as hard for him as it was for me? It’s all I can do to not ask that question. 

“Um, hi.” I never imagined running into him half naked when I thought of all the different ways we would see each other again. I have a whole new appreciation for my morning hikes. My body is strong and tan and my mind is healthier than ever before. 

“Gosh, it’s good to see you.” He rubs a hand through his shaggy blonde hair. He fits the beach vibe very well.

“What are you doing here James?” 

“Well, I got an engineering job here two months ago.” 

“So you live here? In San Diego?” My arms loosely sweep the view around us helping me confirm he means this San Diego, this beach, this city. 

“Yeah. I knew there was a chance I would see you, your mom told my mom when you moved here last year.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” 

James looks over my shoulder to the group of friends I came with. “Do you want to walk with me? Will your friends care?” 

I glance over my shoulder and wave to my best friend, Nat, to let her know I’m not coming back to the water. She sees James standing next to me and her eyebrows rise up with a grin. Only because she thinks James is attractive, she doesn’t know who he is. 

I look back towards him and we begin a slow pace down the beach. The sun is already drying my olive green surf suit, my hair is drying in a tangled mess down my back. We take a few steps in silence, and I attempt to gather all of my thoughts into a clean line. I try to separate the beginning, the middle, the end, from my current feelings about him. I put a wall up to shield my emotions from flooding my veins and my actions.

“How have you been?” His question comes out so easily it makes me wonder if his mind is as jumbled as mine and he is putting on a good front or if he really is okay? My heart floods with pain and grief but also with… affection? Even after eighteen months I can’t believe my mind is turning against me! 

“I’m good. I’ve been good. I work at USD.” 

“Are you an athletic trainer? I know you really wanted to work with athletes.” He mostly keeps his eyes on me, infrequently looking ahead of us.

“Yes, I love it. I work mostly with basketball students, it’s really fun. I never have to be too serious.” I smile knowing this is the truth. “What about you? Are you enjoying San Diego?” 

“I really am. This weather beats Seattle by a landslide. Do you miss home at all?” He asks with a hint of the idea that he is still reconciling with his move down here. I hate how much I can still read him.

“Barely. I’ve found things I really love here, and good friends. They help the most. Have you made any friends here yet?”

“Actually, Tommy moved here with me.” His twin brother. “We got into a sports league with a group of ten guys.” He laughs as he starts telling me silly stories about each guy, most of them were born and raised in San Diego and say they will never leave.

Distantly I hear kids laughing, waves crashing, seagulls, but it’s like it’s miles and miles away and we have slipped into our own world. 

Somehow we have been walking for thirty minutes so we walk into a smoothie shop with a sign that says “Life is better without shoes.” 

James offers to buy me a smoothie since he runs with his phone and a debit card. We walk back to the sand, he unlaces his running shoes and we sit with our toes snug in the wet sand. The strawberry banana smoothie cools my body down and satisfies the parchedness I’ve felt for the last half hour. 

“Do you need to get back to your friends?” He asks me as he leans back on his hands. 

“No, we spend hours here every weekend. I don’t mind.” I smile at him and try my best to keep my eyes from roaming below his jaw. 

“Are you dating any of those guys in your group?” He looks back to the water, maybe because he is afraid to hear me say yes.

“No. I’m not. I haven’t dated anyone since you.” I bury my feet into the soggy sand trying to give myself anything to do.

“I haven’t either.”

I sip on my smoothie not sure where he intended this conversation to go. Seconds tick by, then a minute, and another. We used to sit like this for hours at the top of our hikes in Washington, we weren’t fazed by the silence. The sounds of the earth bring us comfort, on hikes it was the birds, the water, the crunch of snow, the wind, here it’s the ocean, the waves gently lapping onto the sand. On the top of mountains we would find a tree to rest our backs against, our fingers would lace together as we both tried to match our breathing to the gentleness of the air. Eventually he would let his hand rest on my thigh as we took in the views of mountains or alpine lakes or the ocean, even the city. He would plant kisses up my neck and my cheeks and finally my lips as he pulled us up, ready to hike back down the trails. 

Has his mind wandered as far as mine? Am I the only one who remembers those sweet moments we shared? 

He takes in a deep breath and suddenly I’m afraid he is going to tell me he needs to go. “Sophie, I’m so sorry for everything that happened between us.” 

“Oh, James. It’s okay. We both needed to know we could live without each other. It was good for me to learn to breathe without you.”

“It was good for me too, but it was still hard trying to move on from you, what we had, our future. I learned a lot about myself being alone, I was able to grow up. We were so young when we first met, it was difficult for me to know who I was without you but I found things I loved and I learned how to handle my emotions better. I hope you grew without me too.” His eyes search mine curiously, trying to find my answer.

“I did. I learned to not rely on anyone like I relied on you. I know I was selfish and needy, and I told myself I would never be that person again. I discovered things I enjoy for myself, hobbies I truly like that I didn’t like just because you or someone else liked them first. It was so hard for me to let go of you, but I think now I can see how good it was for us to learn some independence.” I set my empty cup in the sand and wrap my arms around my legs, lay my cheek on my knee and fix my eyes on his beautiful face. 

“I’m so happy for you, Soph.” 

For the next hour we talk about everything we did over the last year, our families, our new hobbies, our friends. There is no need to linger on our heartbreak right now. I just want to know this man for who he is today, right now. I want him to know me as I am right now. Our past selves are nearly irrelevant, in some ways it’s like we aren’t those two people at all anymore. 

He stands up, reaching his hand down to pull me up too. Our hands linger together for a moment and I feel an old familiar passion travel into my fingers. His hand glides up my arm, sweeping a section of my long dirty blonde hair behind my back. His fingers continue the path up my shoulder, to my neck, every good feeling I have ever felt for this man comes to life under his touch. His eyes follow the path of his hand while my eyes begin to memorize his face in a new light. Heat rises from my core turning my cheeks pink. His hand rests on my neck, wrapping his fingers at the base of my head, and my mind murmurs those three sweet words that have always been true. 

He pulls me closer to him, leaning in slowly, giving me the opportunity to change my mind. I won’t. 

Our lips lightly touch and I bring my body flush against his wrapping my arms around his waist. All worries of public displays of affection have disappeared from my mind. Our mouths open and close together in a new but easy rhythm … “I Lo…” I push our lips together harder already knowing and feeling what he is going to tell me. I’m so glad I let him go.