Shannon Philpott-Sanders

If You Love Someone, Let Them Go

I’ve always heard that if you love someone you should let them go. Personally, I struggle with letting go. As much as I know that change is a powerful, necessary force in life, I still resist it, fight it, and dread it. As much as I’ve been dreading today, I never realized how much it would hurt to let go of my baby sister.

 Although Molly has been a jet setter from day one, she always seemed to be within reach. We rarely saw her when she lived nearby, but she was there when it mattered and we knew that she was within reach. When she moved as far as Hawaii, she was still within the country. Today, she boarded a plane for Germany. As far as I want to reach out my hand, she’s just too far away to take it now.

 But I love both my sisters enough to let go, even when it feels like a void that can’t be filled with anything in the world. I love them enough to believe in their dreams, their paths, and their choices to explore the world.

 Ironically, my sisters and I were not always close. We had brutal fist fights, outrageous hair-pulling sessions and knock-down, drag-out wrestling matches. I can remember my mom pushing me and Dana out the back door, wearing only a bra and underwear, until we settled a fight over a shirt. I can remember purposefully messing up Molly’s claw bang-do one day in the car while driving her to high school.

 We fought over the front seat, the back seat, and the way back seat in our 1980s wood-paneled station wagon. We fought over toys, mom’s attention, and bedrooms. Later on, we fought over boys, makeup, fake IDs, and beer.

 And then we let it go. We grew up and realized that without each other, our lives would be incomplete. It didn’t matter how much we annoyed, lectured, or teased each other – we had a bond that eventually led to friendship. They are both truly my best friends.

 My sisters can sense when something is “off” in my voice, they can read me like a book, and they’re not afraid to tell me the truth when I need to hear it the most. Dana and I can communicate solely with our eyes – we know what the other is thinking and feeling when in each other’s presence. Molly and I can giggle as adults as if we were still teenagers, feeling as if everything is an inside joke.

 There is something to be said about the bond that sisters have and there is something to be said about letting go. We may have let Molly go today in a sense, but forever in my mind, she is right next to me making me giggle when at the moment, I just want to cry.

– Shannon Philpott
Blog Entry: Sept. 26, 2009

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September 26, 2009 - Posted by sphilpott | Blog, Reflecting | family, long distance relationships, moving to Germany, sisterhood, sisters as best friends