Let it go

I don’t mean to boast, but one of the things I am best at in the whole world is eavesdropping. You might not think that’s a skill, but I will have you know, it’s finely honed. I can now conduct an entire conversation in a cafe while listening to another one taking place at the table just behind me. Now, sometimes my grip on the finer details of the conversation I am having might be less than forensic, and my friends have been known to slap me on the arm mid-sentence, but mostly I get away with it, and the other day was a perfect example. I was in a hotel foyer. There were two bored staff members at the reception desk, a man and a woman. I had been sitting at a couch just out of their view for long enough that they had forgotten about me, so their conversation continued freely for far longer than it would have had they remembered. 

“Jake back yet?” the man asked the woman. 

“Jake? Where’d Jake go?” she asked.

“Room 809. Guests refusing to leave, apparently”, he said. “Two hours until tonight’s guests arrive”.

“Sheesh. How long’s he been gone?”

“Fifteen. Maybe twenty. Should I give him a buzz do you reckon?”

“He’ll be right. It’s Jake.”

“Heh. Totally.”

“How’s Bianca about the mayonaise jacket situation by the way, did you get an update?”

“Mate”, said the man. “She made her take it to the dry cleaners!”

There was a shocked pause.

“No!”

”Yep. I told her, Bianca. Mate. You need to let it go. You just need to let it go. It’s mayonnaise. It was an accident. It’s eating you up mate. Don’t let it eat you up.”

“Don’t get eaten by mayonnaise”, said the woman, and they laughed together a little bit more than perhaps Bianca would have liked. 

“Seriously though”, he said after a while. “Let. It. Go.”

I thought about Bianca. I thought: silly Bianca. But then I thought: I’ve been Bianca. We’ve all been Bianca. Maybe not caring too much about mayonnaise, maybe not forcing someone to get something laundered, but we’ve all cared too much about tiny things. We’ve all needed to let it go.

This is a Public Service Announcement. Don’t be Bianca. Have empathy for Bianca, but don’t be Bianca. Sometimes it’s good to zoom out. 

Zoom so far out that you can remember the feeling of being a kid, but with a sense of yourself that you still recognise. Maybe it’s a moment perched up a tree or balancing on a skateboard at the top of a hill, or playing a game out the back of the neighbour’s house and hearing an adult call your name but waiting just that little bit longer because the game was good. Feel in yourself that version of you.

Zoom out and look at your life now from the perspective of the you that will look back in ten years. You won’t be wishing you focused more on mayonnaise. You’ll be doing the same thing we all do when we look back at ourselves: wishing you could tell yourself how lovely you look when you’re smiling. How you’re not too fat, or too thin (or even if you are, who cares!?). How your friends are lovely and you’re lovely and you have no idea what’s coming so just enjoy this bit for heaven’s sake.      

You’ll think: don’t worry all the time. Don’t regret things - apologise, sure, try and change your behaviour for next time, but don’t allow regret to twist up inside you like an emotional hernia. Or guilt. Or grudges.

Let go.

Let go of parking ticket fury. 

Let go of bad drivers and talkback callers and people who pronounce things problematically.

Let go of how you used to be perceived. 

Let go of those little habits that curtail your enjoyment of something. Let go of the apology as a conversational tic. Resist ludicrous levels of self-censorship like that thing some people do where they park their hand up in front of their mouths like a little gate hovering in the air while they chew, lest anybody see them eating, which is a thing we do in order to survive. Let go of staying at work just to make other people think you’re working. Let go of your phone. 

I am sure Bianca had her reasons. Maybe the mayonnaise debacle is life-shattering in a way I haven’t anticipated. But probably the take-home lesson is: don’t get eaten by mayonnaise. This has been a Public Service Announcement.