Loosening Apron Ties

Don't ask me how I am. I will tell you that I am fine. But, we all know that word: "fine" is a kinder way of saying, do you have five minutes or five hours? So, let me spare you. Sunglasses help me hide my weepy moments these days as I reconcile my ever-changing role as a mother(including the one I had recently driving across town, listening to some sad song on the radio). This year has been a whirlwind. There is really no other way to describe the flurries of growth and the shifts within our family dynamics as the children become more independent.

This fall, we have one child with roughly two semesters left before becoming a nurse, one learning to navigate the OSU metropolis leaving our household with LESS laundry but sadly a little less pizazz, a sophomore who towers over me and will soon be learning to drive, and one sweet twelve-year-old girl, saying farewell to doll clothes and Barbies in exchange for lip gloss and Mom jeans.

Sheesh.

One of the greatest privileges of my life is being their mom. It is my dream job in every way and I have given 1000% to it.  But that doesn't keep my heart from becoming a construction zone each new school year, yellow tape and all, as I make my way around the orange cones cautioning of chasms--the ones their growing up creates.

I fully acknowledge this evolution. Kids come with a disclaimer, right? WARNING: We will not stay little. We will grow up. This is good. It's all part of the plan. Loosening the apron ties is inevitable.

But no one told me about how much I would have to change with them.

No one told me that it would be a constant unsettling and resettling inside of me as my kids teach me how to let go, little by little. The gravity of my world disturbed by increments and then working to ground myself again and again and again. 

Yet all these catalysts have helped me to thrive in my 40s, becoming confident and content--no longer that overly-cautious twenty-five-year-old with a thousand questions (wishing that I had become a pediatrician rather than calling one all the time). Two decades have been my ruthless teachers, but I have learned:

-that kids are resilient and even our best parenting will probably still land them in a little therapy at some point. It's ok. I am ok. They will be OK!

-This parenting thing is hard in all kinds of ways, but it surprises me in the best and in the most unexpected ways.

-Nothing can truly prepare us for being parents and nothing can truly prepare us for letting them go.

These forces of nature propel us through life as we surrender our will over and over and over, yet somehow by the mystery of God's hand we land on our feet even after the free-fall.

..In this process of changing seasons, so will I change, and so will our kids. We will let ourselves be taught, let the jagged, raw edges of our hearts heal as we become wiser than we were before.

Autumn will come soon, after the cicadas quiet down

when the garden plants begin to look tangled and tired

It will come when the field corn is thick and tall 

It will sneak in with a rainshower overnight

And so we are also waiting and watchful for change--Anticipating it, but not being afraid of it. We welcome it and lean into it, even as hard and grueling as it is. We were built for it. And, it will be the miraculous making of us.