Bye Mommy, I Gotta Go

I'm having a much harder time dealing with my son starting school tomorrow than I thought I would.  He's been especially troublesome lately so I thought I might actually be somewhat relieved to see him go (not that I would have actually admitted it.)  I'm not.

He excited and raring to go.  I'm glad that he is because it would be much harder for me if I were dealing with his fears AND my heartache.  I keep telling myself that he's going to have a great time and make lots of new friends and that this is just one more step into his eventual adulthood and independence.  That's my major job as a parent, right?  I'm supposed to make sure that he has the tools to be an independent, functional and Godly man when he's an adult.

This should be exciting for me that he's so ready to begin this next step.  Still, change has never been my strong suit.  This will be a big change that can never be taken back.  This isn't like a move to Montana or something that we can just move back if we find out it's a mistake.  This is a change that is permanent.  I can't help but feel that he will never fully be my little boy again.  From now on, he'll belong, just a little bit, to someone else.

That might not be such a bad thing.  I've been that someone else for lots of other parents.  It was a responsibility that I didn't take lightly.  I knew that I was, in some ways, the other adult that their children looked up to.  While I couldn't fully appreciate how hard that was for some of them, I did understand that it was a difficult transition for a lot of parents to let go.  However, I also understood that I could teach those kids in ways that their parents never could so I was not a replacement but an addition.

I guess that's how I have to see this.  This isn't someone else replacing me in my son's life but an addition to that whole "independence" education thing.  I'm working on seeing it that way, anyway.