The Art of Letting Go

Last week my son started first grade. After more than a year of being home and completing kindergarten entirely virtually, it was a big change. He bravely walked into school, and I less bravely walked away sobbing. In the moment that he walked into school without me I realized parenting is learning the art of letting go. 

Actually it started before we were parents. It all seems like it'll be pretty seamless: you decide you want kids, you proceed to start trying to have said kids, it happens. Easy peasy. Obviously that's not how it happened in our case. I vividly remember the moment where we had to decide the next step in our fertility struggle. If we were going to be parents we had to decide between IVF or adoption. Given my health issues we chose adoption, but I had to let go of how I thought I'd become a mother. I wasn't going to be pregnant. I wasn't going to experience those in utero firsts. I wasn't going to be able to control what happened during my child's pregnancy. It was the first time I had to let go.

Eighteen months later we were chosen to be parents. We met the heavily pregnant birth mother who showed up with her fourteen-month-old daughter in tow. She was having another girl, and she'd chosen us to parent. We were having a girl. People bought us presents mostly in the color pink. I folded adorable pink onesies and dresses. The birth mom went into labor, and communication stalled. We felt the crushing disappointment as she changed her mind. I had to let go of any thought that I was in control.

Eighteen months later we were chosen to be parents again. We met our heavily pregnant birth mother who asked what we were going to name our son. The entire interaction was different. She treated me like I was one who was pregnant. We were in the hospital when he was born, and two minutes after he entered this world he was nestled against me. I vowed I would spend the rest of my life making sure he knew how much he was loved: not only by us, but by the amazing, selfless woman who chose us to be his parents. 

The day after he was born his birth mother asked to see him. Obviously we agreed and walked around outside during an unseasonably warm December day. When we arrived back to the room our son was still with her, and I began to panic. What if she was changing her mind? A few minutes later the nurse brought him back, and I realized I had to let go. There was nearly two months between his birth and the time when his birth mother could change her mind. I was terrified it would happen, and if it did I'd let go, because those are the rules. I am eternally grateful every day that she did not change her mind, and I get to be this wonderful little boy's mom. 

Finally here, indeed.

Two months after his birth it was time for me to go back to work. I pushed the stroller through the snow on the walk to daycare. I handed him over to then-strangers who were going to spend more time with my child awake than I did. I left a piece of my heart there as I walked on to work, tears freezing on my face in the frigid February air. I let go.

Will's first day of daycare, February 2015

I let go the first time we hired a babysitter. I let go the first time we traveled without him, when he was 10 months old and we went to New York so I could run the New York Marathon. When he was four I let go as we switched preschools. Sometimes he would cry so hard when I dropped him off that I could hear him as I walked down the hallway, heart pounding and tears streaming. 

Somehow I left this adorable 10-month-old

Then came the spring of 2020, and we held tight. He was home with us all day, every day for more than a year. COVID meant that we couldn't let go; we held onto him as closely as we could. Sometimes the days felt interminable.  Sometimes I ran out of patience. But our job is to keep him safe, and that meant holding him as closely and tightly as we could.

Holding tightly

I have a friend who took her youngest to college a few weeks ago, and I was thinking of how many times I still have to let go: middle school, high school, college, friends, dating, marriage, choices I don't agree with. The thought hurts my chest because I'm not ready for any of them. 

But for now first grade. We're thrilled with our school district, requiring masks and vaccinations or daily rapid COVID tests for teachers. Even though it is terrifying to let him go, we have to. After a very successful first day of school, he had a meltdown on day two. He sobbed as we stood outside waiting for his teacher to escort the class into the building. I held him and whispered over and over that it would be okay, and he's very brave. His gangly legs kicked my knees because he's really too big to be held, but I'll hold him until I can't any longer. One of these days will be the last time, and I'll have to let go. Today is not that day. 

First day of first grade.