Just Another Chapter: A Mom Moment

My littlest is going to school today, and I am an emotional wreck.

The alarm goes off signaling a new chapter. Brush sleep from tired eyes and put on a smile. Eat breakfast, pack lunch and get the kids dressed. New shoes, new clothes new supplies. 

I look at them this morning and see how much they have grown. Derek with his new haircut and a missing molar from two days earlier. Yet another sign he is growing up. He sits at shoulder height and I await the day I look up to him instead of down into his bright blue eyes. I see Breanna as such a big girl today. She's five and I see her happy smile and vibrant personality in the outfit she chooses and the poses she does for the obligatory first day of school snapshots. She dances around excited to embark on this adventure. I look at my children today with eyes of a loving mother who has been with her children since the day they were born with very few breaks in between then and now, and I miss them already. 

Today a new chapter in life starts, and my heart as much as it wants to be happy, folds in half as it struggles to let them go, to let them grow. The majority of my life, since 2008 when my son was born, has been with my children. My entire exsistenece has been based around them. Even when we go out on a date night, my kids are embedded in my brain, my bones, heart and soul. Today, as I hugged and smothered them with kisses, and felt the nervous energy roll off them, I took it in and then left the class room with a smile and waved. Don't show them your tears, I would tell my self. Take a steadying breath. The tears came anyway. 

Leaving your last 'baby' in school is an unexpected devastation to my heart. Part of me, so excited for this moment, competes with the part that doesn't know what to do now. My life has been my children, now my children need me less. A lot less, and change is hard. Accepting that they really are big kids, is hard.

I am so happy to have grown two amazing, headstrong, lovable, beautiful, children, and I am sad at the same time.  They will have new adventures for me to hear about and turn into stories, and they will have new friends or possibly enemies. (My son is getting to that age where that stuff starts happening I suppose.) They will have a 100 birthday invites that we will end up going to 2 of, because let's face it, parents can only handle so many parties with screaming kids. They will try new things and learn more about themselves, and this year, as my 3rd grader learns about things I am not prepared for him to learn about, and my kindergartener starts her school career, I will begin a new adventure too. Maybe that is the scariest part of it all.

I now have a chance to figure out who I am again, and I am not sure what that entails, where to begin or where to go. The future is certainly not clear, and the paths are ever changing. Not knowing, for me, is one of the hardest things to deal with, but I will. I will deal with it, because that is life. Things change, and as a person, as a mother, as an individual, I have to adapt. Today I will allow myself to cry the confused song of letting go and the unknown. Tomorrow I will begin figuring out the rest of life and what in hell a mom is supposed to do once all her kids go to school. Like now. 

Maybe you are like me, and crying your eyes out unexpectedly, (maybe you already knew you would,) or maybe you are doing a happy dance. Either way, good luck. Good luck to figuring it all out. I don't have answers, just an overwhelmed heart. 

With love to all the parents who need a hug as they send their littles off to school, from an emotional wreck of a mom this morning. 

Regular writings will be back soon, including poetry, answering some of the most frequent questions I am asked and more character interviews!