massive, invisible transition

Today is my eldest’s last day at preschool. The only world he's ever known. He and my youngest have gone together. Every single day. They've gone there together every day of their lives. The boys have never been separated for any length of time. 

They are so intimately a twosome.

I don't know who they will be, independent of each other. And I know it will be good for them, but it's not trivial. What a universe-shaking impact coming for us. Some things only a mother sees. Feels trite and old-fashioned to say. But simultaneously it feels visceral truth, a superpower of inhabiting, and independently observing, space-time. And, from a place of feeling so connected and attached to them [my heart walking around outside my body], I feel the magnitude of it. I feel unmet, unseen, in the magnitude of it. 

They are going from a twosome, twins in every experiential sense, (‘I can't believe they're not twins!’) to independent, little people, hopefully with their own friend groups and their own experiences to tell each other about. We are introducing Missing Each Other into the equation, where it's never been before.

Step one: dividing the twosome, the intimate, sacred connection of siblings whose worlds are inextricably intertwined. 

Step two: leaving the nest, one initiation at a time until infinity.

This impact feels immeasurable to me. He's going from this only-universe-he's-ever-known at the little preschool where he knows everybody, knows the place inside out, knows the teachers. He's the OG group, the very first cohort of kids (toddlers!) when they opened their doors. He's going to the campus of K-12 in a classroom of forty. There's the potential for other kids to break his heart, of course. There is the time-marches-on grief, of COURSE. But the machinery of learning how to be a contributing member of society, á la capitalism, punching the clock, eight to four everyday. With the fluorescent lights, and asking permission to pee, and all of the conditioning to prepare for obedience, compliance, productivity, deadlines. Uniformity. It is absolutely not what I want for him. 

And I hear a voice saying, “just settle down Drea, it's not that big of a deal. It’s not the end of the world. And, PS everybody does it, so who cares?” And, because I was homeschooled, it already feels foreign–it’s literally something I never did and I have no files on. I feel the impact, the significance of that psychological conditioning. I know intimately what it felt like to have that foisted upon me. I was thrown in the deep end of the institutionalism of school at sixteen instead of five. Maybe it feels/felt more traumatic to me than it will be for him because it happened at sixteen and not five. Regardless, I feel finely attuned to the subtlety of this transition that he is on the brink of. 

I want to protect him from indoctrination, I want to protect his spirit, his freedom, his passion and curiosity, his open-heartedness. I want to cradle that in him and keep it safe. I don't want him to have to callus over, become immune to the insensitive world. I want him to always feel the sovereignty of his body and his emotions and his heart. AND his mind. And his soul. How he moves through the world. I want him to feel the beat of seasons and cycles, I want him to feel from his belly, I want him to trust himself, know himself, never lose himself. I never want his self-knowing to be deadened for the sake of conformity and acceptance. Like it was for me. 

It’s a classic. This maternal heart-yearning to protect the innocence in our innocents, from the ache of our own losses. I suspect (know) it’s futile, hopeless, inevitable. The process of maturity. It comes for him as it will for my youngest, as it does for all of us, as it should, as it must. 

Actually the voice also says, “could you be any more of a sappy, soppy sponge? Are you freaking kidding with this? Suck it up, get over yourself!”

But that desire in my heart. Grief and gratitude for the innocence in him. And me. It hums. It vibrates. It holds my breath. It’s in my dreams in symbols. It has been coming every minute of this path. And it’s not going away. Invisibly, it will color my days, my decisions, how I show up. 

[Serenity Prayer] Can I do anything about it? What can I do? How do I accept What-Is? How do I authorize myself to be available and open-handed with safety and refuge for him? How do I see with clear eyes? How do I heal my wounds around this? These are rhetorical questions, but I think my work as a parent, in this moment, is to answer them. To take my wounds to therapy. To show up to my grief and gratitude. 

And yeah. To make space for me in this equation. Where do I fit? Me, Drea, as a human. Tending to myself as a human so that I can do my parenting job well