Step Two

The big day happened this week. The one that we have been talking about, preparing for, and, dare I say, grooming our lives around. And just like I had hoped, we woke up to an excited little boy with big anticipation and walked him right up to the front door on his very first day of school.

He was front and center of his classmates, leading the way inside.

As I watched him walk away with his big backpack strapped to his little body, my heart could have burst right open. He was ready. Confident and self-assured. And because he was fully sure, I was not one bit nervous about how his day would go. I knew it would all be okay. So, I drove away processing ambivalent emotions of excitement and sadness and joy and grief all at the same time – in a way that only a parent would understand.

All sorts of milestones that we have shared with him reeled through my mind, and how lucky we have been to share every one of them with him under our wing. But not this one. He’s under the wing of two new teachers in his life.

For the very first time in his whole life (and ours), we have let him go just a little, which is gut-wrenching. And yet, how fortunate we are to get to be on the sidelines watching him learn new things in life. How fortunate we are to get to provide him with an education.

So, now what?

That was the question whirling around in my head as I drove to work and the question that I’m still replaying a week after the day. What do I do now?

Of course, I’ll go to work. But what do I do with this part of me that has been with him the majority of almost every day for the last four years? I suppose I do what every parent eventually has to learn to do: let go.

Not all the way, of course. I will still pack his lunch, lay out his clothes, remind him to get the back teeth while he’s brushing his teeth, and probably ask him a hundred questions about his day before we make it back into the driveway. I will still kiss his boo-boos and hold his hand when we cross the street.

But I also have to make room for the parts of his life that don’t belong entirely to me anymore. I have to let his teachers teach him. Let his friends influence him. Let him discover things without me standing right beside him. Let him figure things out. Let him come home with stories I wasn’t there to witness, new songs I didn’t teach him, and ideas that didn’t come from us.

Parent to parent, in my four years of being a biological mama, giving my child wings of his own outside of mine has been the hardest part so far. But that was – and is – always the goal. To grow his wings so that one day he can go live a life bigger than the one he has now.

Step one was teaching him to walk and talk. Step two is stepping back to watch him learn outside of me.

He was ready. But if I’m being honest, the one who needs a little more preparation for this new chapter isn’t him at all. It’s me.

-by Destini McPherson