It was morning of September 3rd, 2015. Mattie
stood on the front porch, backpack slung over his shoulder, big smile on his
face, so excited to be starting this journey…so much more ready than the person
begging to memorialize the moment with a photo. The same photo I’ve taken since
his first day of Pre-K. I’ve been there, every single time, every single
moment. This one should be no different. And yet it is.
As he drove out of the driveway with his cousins, heading
off to his first day as a senior in high school, I am paralyzed by my emotions.
It’s hard to believe this day is here already. I knew it was coming. I had 17
years to prepare for it and yet, I’m not. I should feel proud. I should feel
happy. I should feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, a sense of
something, anything good but I don’t. My heart simply aches, just as I knew it
would. It’s not to say that deep down I don’t have a flood of other emotions,
amazing emotions about how proud I am and how fortunate I am to have been
blessed with this incredible kid. But at this moment, it pales in comparison to
the pain my heart feels.
This year, his senior year, will be filled with so many
moments that will make me proud. He will get his driver’s license. He will go
to prom. He will graduate. He has grown up before my eyes and instead of
watching all these moments in normal time it’s like watching them on an old movie
projector…Just when you get to the end, the reel flies wildly off the spool.
That’s me. I’m trying to hold onto these moments, one at a time, trying to
savor each one. They are precious moments that are flying wildly past me. I
simply can’t get a grip on time anymore.
I remember moments when he was little. Things like bringing
him to my Mom’s, carrying him up that huge flight of stairs, dropping him off
so I could go grab a drink with my friends or go to a movie or have an hour to
clean the house uninterrupted by a toddler. Uninterrupted. If only I could go
back and realize the power of the moment. If only I knew then how the time
would race by. But I didn’t. None of us do. We only see what’s right in front
of us. We don’t expect our children to be babies one day and in the blink of an
eye, before us, stands a grown up.
I know I’m not the only parent to experience this. I know
I’m not the only parent that wants to hold on for dear life and yet have the
presence of mind to try and let go a little each day. I know it’s tough for a
lot of us. But in the moment it feels like the loneliest place in the world. I
haven’t been fortunate enough in my life to have the kind of marriage where I
look forward to having the house empty. I haven’t had the “looking forward to
time alone with my husband after the kids are gone” kind of life. I’ve been a mom,
that’s all. My whole life has been wrapped up in him. Every single ounce of it.
Maybe I’ve done him a disservice. Maybe I’ve done myself a disservice. But I
don’t think so. He is a bright, sweet, funny, smart, amazing young man with a
heart like mine (the jury is still out on if that’s good or bad) who dreams big
and loves hard and wants nothing but the best for himself and those around him.
I’d say I did a good job and although I know my job is far from over,
everything is changing and changing fast. My problem is, I don’t know what to
do with myself now.
Do I take up a hobby? Do I study a foreign language? Do I go
back to school? What do I do with all this time that I dedicated to raising
him? The everyday time that he no longer needs of me. I simply don’t know what to do and with each
passing day, the me I always knew myself to be, is fading away. I feel in a
weird way, I am becoming less of a mother and more of just a regular woman and
I don’t know what to do with that or how to relate to it.
These moments I speak of, are flying by. Graduation is next
week and I can hardly keep a thought in my head. I am happy Mattie has decided
to go to a community college only 20 minutes from home but the dynamic is
already different. It’s in our nature to teach our children independence but
when they finally grow their wings it’s a crushing blow to the Mama bird still
perched in the nest. I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want him to not need
me. It’s selfish, I know but I can’t help it. I should have planned better. I
should have prepared myself better for this moment to be left this alone. But I
didn’t. So for once, I seem to be at a loss for words. A loss of perspective.
It seems I cannot see beyond this moment, beyond this murky lens in which I
view my life. I am so excited for this next leg of his journey because he has
worked so hard and he deserves this. He deserves a life of his own, a life
filled with all he has ever dreamed of. And as I watch that light of his burn
brighter and brighter, I see mine slowly extinguish and it scares me so.
For now, I will do as I do. I will sit back and take what I
can in stride. Take it with a bit of humor and grace. I will watch this young
man who I love more than life, blossom and take with him every hope and dream I’ve
ever had for him. He will continue to grow, continue to shine brighter than the
brightest star and I will relish in the fact that I was witness to it all; every
time, every single moment and with many, many tears, and a smile on my face, even
the senior ones.
