Goodbye Childhood

Today, I am sad! I am sad, but happy that I've had the chance to experience what I now grieve.

When you say you're grieving, people immediately think that someone you know must've died. This is a logical conclusion to the word. But, as a parent, and as a person, I have gone through grief in ways other than death of a person. It hits you in strange times and in strange ways, usually unexpectedly.

Let me explain. A few years ago when my daughter's dance teacher retired to start her own daycare, I grieved. I mean sobbing grief that hit me out of the blue. I realized at that moment that my older two children were no longer little. See, they took dance at the local YMCA, and this teacher's leaving meant more than just the void of dance in our lives. It meant me realizing that no more would I be taking these littles to gymtivity or kids nights out or swim lessons or any of the multitude of kid activities that the YMCA offered. Because not only was the teacher leaving, but my kids were aging out.

Yes, I still had my youngest to hang onto, but she wasn't interested in these activities like the older two had been.

As we began our journey to find a new dance studio, I sobbed often. I realized I was grieving. I was grieving the loss of my children's childhoods.

Yes, this is a natural progression in parenting. Kids grow up. They fly. Isn't that the purpose after all?

Yes, it's the purpose if you've done your job well - You get to rejoice watching them bloom.

But, it's still sad, in a grieving kind of way.

I absolutely LOVED being a mom to littles. As each one began adolescence, and two in the teens now, I muddled through. I've never been comfortable with middle school aged kids, not even when I was one. And, I doubt my parenting was that great as the first two moved through it. Thankfully, I'm more aware with my youngest who is now in the throws of adolescence. Hopefully, I'll get it right.

Meantime, I graduated a teen last year. I'm watching all of the back to school pics, and many of my friends who had babies at the same time I did are posting their new college dorm room pics of their kids. Meanwhile, my 18-year-old has no idea what he is doing. He wants to take a gap year at best, which I do fear will turn into several years of seeking.

As I look at these college pics, a wave of panic comes over me as if I've failed my oldest. Will he ever succeed? He has the same fears, and I need to parent a now new adult without pushing him over the edge into a future God never intended.

Part of his success during his early teen years was joining a robotics team. Well, upon graduation he has now aged out. I drove the route every Thursday night for years with him chattering away at me from the back seat about everything from C# programming to which Sonic game was the best to the history of Steve Jobs to news events. It was our time, that drive.

Today, I drove the same path as I showed my middle child how to get to a location along that similar drive, which she will now drive every week for choir. As I drove these streets, I almost cried - I was grieving. I was grieving the loss of that talking communication bonding time between mother and son during those robotics nights.

I'll get through it. I'll grieve and move on. But, I won't be the same. No, I haven't lost a loved one. But, I have lost some really good moments with my littles that will never return. All I can do now is embrace the pleasant memories that they have become as I move forward becoming less and less needed, a bit older, and hopefully happy, content, and contributing joy to others in the process.

Goodbye childhood! It was super fun while it lasted. May my children forgive any unintended pain along the way, and may these experiences serve my children well as they grow into their wings to fly.