It happened.
We were so busy. Making lunches with crustless sandwiches, finding the matching shoe, reheating coffee, taking front step photos, reassuring him of his own intelligence and telling him to let his humor and personality shine through. We had to make it to drop off on time. We held his hand on the rushed walk to the front school doors. We chatted with parents we knew and met a couple we didn’t. He put his fingers in his mouth and bit his lip, smiling through this big transition. We hugged hard and no one fell apart. No one cried. No one asked for it to be any different. And then, the teacher took the outdoor photo with the “Class of 2034” sign, lined them all up and off they went. He turned to wave to us only one time, fingers still in his mouth. And I smiled a big fat smile and waved back – probably far too excitedly – because it was all going to be OK.
It just happened. Just like that. In the blink of an eye.
We drove home and I sat down at the kitchen table, work laptop in front of me but no work getting done. I found myself staring at the bright screen, gradually became blurrier. It happened. I cried. Just gentle, quiet, this-is-how-it-has-to-be tears. But tears nonetheless.
I sat and listened to the house. There were no Magna-Tile mansions being built. I heard no LEGO cars being broken out of frustration. I was able to think for longer than 30 seconds without someone saying, “What are we doing next, mama?” I walked to the bathroom without him wondering where I was going (it was always just the bathroom…but he also always had to know. Also I think he liked being able to follow up his question with “number one or number two?” and giggle because he’s…well, he’s 5). No snacks were being pulled out of the cupboards. No musicals were being played on Alexa. No Wild Kratts were on TV. No messes were being made.
Life just changed. Just like that. It just happened.
And in that moment, I love-hated it. I hate-loved it. It was the most bittersweet feeling and it tore my heart the tiniest bit while simultaneously I was making a mental list of what I could now potentially accomplish without all the noise, chatter, and bathroom inquiries.
It’s got to be normal, this feeling. He was our last to send off, but I clearly remember dropping my firstborn off – sobbing like only a sleep-deprived mother can – when another dad candidly tapped my arm and told me, “It gets easier.” So today, after waving goodbye to our baby, I turned to pay that forward to a mom who was me eight years ago, crying quietly above her mask. “It gets easier,” I said, smiling under mine.
I walked back to the car, emotional yet together, and drove back to the most silent of houses.
We go through the motions a lot in life. We do it because we are on the defense or we are too hurried or we don’t know how else to handle a situation. This morning we found our matching shoe, we took our photos, we cut crust off our sandwiches. But we made time to hug and say I love you. We will run through the motions until the day we die, but it’s that last part – that emotional element – that’s what we carry with us when the house falls quiet. When we have time to finally sit and just be.
Life is going to continue to just happen. This won’t be the last time I will combat these feelings. So, I let it all happen. And it happened exactly the way it was supposed to. And that, my friends, is precisely how life was built to operate. It happens. We feel the feelings. Then we smile, because we did it.
