Long after you should have let go…

It is so hard to go back to a love when nothing has changed except that neither one wants to let go.

So I think there should be a couple’s 10-step program on how to get
together and then a 10-step program on how to let go…

I was reminded of this theory when I thought back to when the twins were 5 going on 6 years old. Of course, then, I was still bathing them every night without fail.
It was the same labor of love, routine, or habit – I don’t know what it was, but every night I was there, bathing them, washing their hair, and then wrapping them both up in their baby hooded towels.

I don’t even think I had noticed they had outgrown their towels, but yes, they had…

One night while bathing the twins, my mom walks by the bathroom, stops, looks in, then she comes over and taps me on the shoulder to say

“You know the girls know how to wash themselves right?”

Apparently, during the times she watched them, their bathing routine looked decidedly different from mine with the girls…

But I digress.

It was as if her words had awakened me from a trance.  I  smiled at her, looked at the girls; smiled at them, and they smiled back with wide eyes and prideful smiles that seem to say

“yes mommy we know how”

It was then I gave them the soap, washcloths and let them have at it.

Looking back on that scene, I realized that the girls would have let me washed them as long as I wanted to because they love me.  They would have let me hold on to our evening ritual for as long as I needed to because:

“Love lets you hold on long after you should have let go.”

Maybe, before couples call it “splits,” they should work on letting go first.  At least this way, they will be able to let go with love instead of anger.

If, during the letting-go process, the two consistently show up in the relationship, maybe that will be the true indication they are willing to be together.

Not because of habit or routine, but rather because they choose to hold on to Love…together.

(c) 2012 MH