Letting Go

With the start of a new school year tomorrow, and the content of this post, I decided to post a few days early.

         –Lia 

I watch my neighbor on his riding mower through my kitchen window as I place the stack of glasses I gathered from the table and counter tops into the sink. Even though he is past the cut cornfield, alone on his own hill, about a quarter of a mile away, I picture him with a smile because he is always wearing one. It is not just any smile; his is the kind that reaches his eyes and forces them to squint, creating more space for his happiness to overflow.

He’s 94. His ancestors built my 1901 farmhouse with timbers and creek rocks from the land surrounding our home.

I think I should visit him more.

“Mom.” My children’s voices call in unison, distracting my thoughts.

Time marches on.

~

Another new school year ushers in aisles of book bags, binders, and boxes of unbroken crayons.

Hope intermixes with something else inside of me. Whatever that something is, it grows as I walk down the school’s unscuffed hallway floors.

It continues to grow as the new school year inches closer and with it, the realization that my children don’t depend on me as much anymore.

I long for our yesterdays full of messy hands and messy faces.

I crave chaotic days that freeze as I lovingly study thick lashes on popsicle-stained faces slumbering in my arms.

But time marches on.

~

My children are growing older, and I am too.

Still, I cling tightly, until my knuckles turn white and my fingers grow numb.

I’m not ready to let go, and yet I am.

Time is not mine to control. But I want to control it, if only through tiny pieces of my children’s lives, like what they wear, who they hang out with, and the choices they make.

But I can’t and I shouldn’t.

Life molds us as we grow. The process can be painful—especially considering the most growth tends to occur through life’s uncomfortable experiences.

Pain and discomfort are exactly what I don’t want my children to experience.

Pain and discomfort are exactly what I don’t want to experience—the pain and discomfort that accompany wrong choices, heartbreak, and rejection, and the pain and discomfort that accompany aging, death, and loneliness.

If only I could remove all the clocks from my home and force time to stand still. Maybe then I could control time instead of time controlling me. But surely somebody, somewhere would still draw a slash on the calendar at the close of their day, forcing time to march on.

~

Time is an arbitrary number, like our age and the number we place on a grade in school. Those arbitrary numbers represent whatever we create them to represent—the ending of one era or the beginning of something new.

~

There is a butterfly bush outside the window by my writing desk. It is full of purple flowers and a variety of butterflies this time of year. The butterflies seem unaffected by time, age, or grades in a school year. They flutter from flower to flower, busy in the moment with the task at hand. For a moment, I am lost in their beauty.

I don’t want time to dictate my thoughts or the type of life I choose to lead.

I want to pause and admire the beauty of nature in front of me.

I want to mow my lawn at 94 and still smile at the world.

I want to embrace the thought of letting go of my children and trusting life to mold them into who they are meant to be.

I want to live in the moment—unworried about things I can’t control—and peacefully watch my future unfold as time marches on.