Letting go… of 'talking words'

Write a letter instead

There are three people in our family. One mother, one father and one daughter. Our lives merge in the evening when all of us are together. We love each other. So in theory, what a joyful union this would be. And it is.

But for a good part of our time together, we bicker, we disagree, we sulk, we try to control, we try to discipline, we try to defy, we try to push limits… At times it seems as if there are too many words in the room – too much talking – too much defiance – too much explaining – too many expectations.

And to think this perspective belongs to the one who does a good chunk of that talking (!!). I guess even I get tired of hearing my own voice! I do. I really do.

And even if my voice were as sweet (ahem…) as I’d like to believe, the tone is assumes, the words it selects, the expectations it lays down, the pressures it feels, the fatigue it reflects… gives it a different tenor. Agreed we are all tired at the end of the day. But this is our time together and I want us to get energy from it, not feel drained.

A few night ago, as I started lecturing one hapless eight-year old about something, I noticed how disconnected she was. She was trying to either ward off my words or they were making her truly unsettled and unhappy. So I let it go.

Although I stopped talking, I hadn’t truly let it go. The matter continued to poke at my insides. And so instead of talking, I sat down and wrote. I wrote a letter to my daughter. It was loving and yet it addressed the matter. It made me feel good. It made me feel connected. It allowed me to express my love (and concern about the matter). It was honest and genuine. Just the way I like things to be.

It was honest and genuine. Just the way eight-year-olds like things to be. But it was also more loving and less reproachful than my words would have sounded to her. She put it with the other letters I had written to her from the hospital. Letters which were light-hearted despite the surgery. Letters to let her know that I was going to be okay. Letters to let her know that she was going to be okay. Letters that gave her permission to not come visit me in the hospital as it made her uneasy. Letter that allowed her to be connected to me even when she did not visit me.

She eyed her stack of letters with a certain satisfaction. So I suggested we find a box for her to put them in. To my surprise, she found three. One box for each member of our family (in a rather Goldilocks kinda way). To be filled with letters from one another. “We can write letters to one another, Mom,” she said excitedly. What a lovely thought…

The Mom and Dad letter boxes still lie empty. But each time I look at the stack of boxes, I feel happiness inside for the potential they hold and for everything they hopefully will hold.