Time Is A Thief

Six years ago today (August 30th) I became a mama. If I could give only one piece of parenting advice forever it would be this: time moves impossibly fast after children enter your life. I cannot seem to grasp onto the fact that James’s birth was six years ago and still remember it so vividly that it feels like it just happened. Time is a thief.

And yet here we are, in the doorway of a new, great milestone. School. Not just preschool, ELEMENTARY school. Kindergarten. Preschool feels like child’s play compared to the league we are running in now. That’s not to dismiss preschool, we loved it and I’m so thankful we did it, but this kindergarten business is the real deal folks. Seat belts on, tray table up. No messing around.

This letting go. Oh, it is both heartbreaking and magical to watch. This person that you spent nearly every day of the last 5, almost 6 years with just stroll on into school with all the joy and confidence in the world. It’s what we are meant to be preparing for, this letting go, but it is not easy. I literally feel like a piece of me is being removed and placed somewhere else for 7 hours a day. And this piece of me experiences all kinds of things that I’ll barely even be told about, some of them not at all. It is both a part of me and separate from me at the same time. It is gut wrenching. To be both proud of the person you helped create and seeing who they are becoming all while still wishing you were there to experience their days with them.

And so, every morning I drive through the drop off line and watch him jump out and go running into school. Despite every part of my being wanting to stop him and take him home with me. As hard as it is to do, he needs me to let him go. Just a little bit. As much as it hurts to let him go, it will hurt him worse if I don’t.

And at 3pm the part of me that I didn’t  know was holding it’s breath relaxes again when I see him waiting for me as I drive through the pickup line. He gets in the van and I feel whole again. All is as it should be, him here with me experiencing things together. Parenthood brings some of our absolute greatest joys and some of our greatest sorrows. It is worth every single moment.

-K