This one hit hard. As a dad, I feel that line about parenting being a series of goodbyes more than I can explain. From the crib to the bus stop to the driver’s seat, every stage is practice for the next release. College may still be years away for me, but I know the day will come when I have to let go again. Your words remind me that the pride and the ache ride side by side, and that is exactly how it should be.
Right?? Each stage does prepare us, yet when it arrives it still feels brand new. Maybe that is part of the gift, to be surprised by how deeply we can love and how hard it is to let go.
“Maybe this is why we are so bad at predicting how we will feel in moments like these, because no forecast can capture the way so many emotions can pull at you all at once.” I imagine being in space where there is no up, down, forwards, backwards, there is just a place. Sometimes the emotions take you one way, then the next, then space bends and you make the hop and space flattens and you’re a millions miles away from where you just were and, a moment later back again. But not in the exact same spot, just a millimeter off. All this in the name of ‘becoming’, different. I’ve just summed up your words in a way for me to better understand what you have written. Your words have really struck a chord and given me a better understanding of my own journey. Thank you.
I love allowing a spontaneous image to take flight, honoring your inspiration. PS, on my page I post with the addition of a photo that captures the essence. Enjoy! and Thank you!!
Awh, I had wet eyes sending him to second school first day. I still remember how he and I cried the first day at nursery.
Mine too! Each letting go is own kind of hard and its own kind of beautiful!
This one hit hard. As a dad, I feel that line about parenting being a series of goodbyes more than I can explain. From the crib to the bus stop to the driver’s seat, every stage is practice for the next release. College may still be years away for me, but I know the day will come when I have to let go again. Your words remind me that the pride and the ache ride side by side, and that is exactly how it should be.
Thank you so much. The letting go does prepare us for each next one, but I am always amazed how wholly unprepared I feel.
Right?? Each stage does prepare us, yet when it arrives it still feels brand new. Maybe that is part of the gift, to be surprised by how deeply we can love and how hard it is to let go.
“Maybe this is why we are so bad at predicting how we will feel in moments like these, because no forecast can capture the way so many emotions can pull at you all at once.” I imagine being in space where there is no up, down, forwards, backwards, there is just a place. Sometimes the emotions take you one way, then the next, then space bends and you make the hop and space flattens and you’re a millions miles away from where you just were and, a moment later back again. But not in the exact same spot, just a millimeter off. All this in the name of ‘becoming’, different. I’ve just summed up your words in a way for me to better understand what you have written. Your words have really struck a chord and given me a better understanding of my own journey. Thank you.
This is absolutely beautiful and helpful.
This is also so true: “Parenting is, at its core, a long series of goodbyes.” I have two teenage sons and the goodbyes feel daily sometimes.
Truth!
How many times
Have I said to clients
The mama bird
Has to nudge, push, shove
The baby bird
Out of the nest.
Sometimes the client
Is the mama
Sometimes the bird
Inevitably time moves forward
The push, the flight
Is fraught with emotion
Your future flashes before you
Flapping for all your worth
Success is landing
On the branch in front of you!
This fantastic. I love being on this journey with you!
I love allowing a spontaneous image to take flight, honoring your inspiration. PS, on my page I post with the addition of a photo that captures the essence. Enjoy! and Thank you!!
I love this so much, thank you for all of this.
I STILL tear up every time that I say goodbye to my daughters. They are well past the college years. yet I hold them tightly in my heart. Forever.
It absolutely aches forever. Those people!!!