Closing Another Chapter of Parenting

It is thought that our job as parents are to give our children wings so that when they are ready they can fly. It is also thought that our job is to give our children deep roots so that although life may bend and twist them it will never break them because their foundation is deep and strong. And so, as parents, we spend our days helping our children grow and trying to do the very best we can with individual children who all need different things from us, and come with absolutely no instruction manual, on how to do this parenting gig properly. Some days are parenting successes and we jump for joy and are ready to write the next best-selling parenting book. Other days, well, not-so-much. The only thing we can hang on to on those bad days is that the sun will rise yet again in the morning and we can begin anew.

I have been blessed with four amazing children.  The older I get I know that I can truly call them blessings and miracles. I had my children young, and youth while good for many things, also leaves us quite ignorant of many truths for one reason or another. I see now so many of my mama friends or those who are trying to become mamas struggle obtaining this miracle called life that I thought was supposed to come as easily to all as it did to me. Their struggles make me look at my own tribe and see how blessed I am to have so many of them, to have had them so quickly, and so easily. I feel that I owe it not only to my own children and myself to be the best mama that I can be, but also I owe it to all of those who are struggling to complete their family or begin their family to be the best mama that I can be. And so I try to do just that. Day in and day out.

As we all know, as the days pass, so do the months, and then the years. And then all of the sudden a mama finds that she is almost at the end of a huge chapter in her mama journey. She will soon be coming to the point where the wings of her children will have become strong enough to fly away on their own. For good. And because this mama chose to have her children one after the other it appears that they will all leave her nest one after the other in two year increments.

This realization that my family, my pride and joy, is going to be altered soon happened when I realized that my oldest son is going to be turning 17 in about 6 weeks. Although only finishing up his sophomore year of high school he has only two years left before he can take root and fly away on his own adventure to college and the world beyond. He will be out of my protective cocoon that I have so painstakingly created for all of my children these last 17 years so that they could enjoy the beauty and magic of childhood that is taken from so many too young for so many reasons. He will be up, up, and away. And he will take a piece of my heart with him. As will his brother two years later, and his first sister two years after that. And finally, the littlest sister two years after that.  I want to enjoy everything about being a full time family of six before each of my kids goes off to college and becomes a part time resident in our household, and then moves out entirely and becomes a full time resident in their own household. Just as quickly as they came into this world they will leave my world albeit not entirely as they will always be my children and I will always be their mama, but it will be different for sure.

Although I am not sure if I can handle to see this investment of mine leaving in such a quick succession of time I know that this was the deal that I made with the Universe when I became a mama. It is the deal that almost all mamas and daddies make when we open our hearts to becoming parents.I was granted the gift of 18 years to do as I pleased and raise these kids as I saw fit, but once I did so, they would take what I have given them and fly away to use these gifts in their own lives as they each saw fit. I was on borrowed time from day one. I will not regret, ever, making this deal with the Universe even though seeing them go will both be one of the happiest moments of my life as their success is my success, their joy is my joy, and their sorrow is my sorrow, but also one of the most heartbreaking as I have invested so much of myself in these four souls that I will feel as if I am losing a piece of myself each time one of them flies away.

Knowing that I am in the final chapter of this borrowed time I plan on making the absolute most I can of each of these days I have left. As every parents knows: the days are long, but the years are short. What a lot of parents fail to realize because they feel (as I certainly did) that these days would stretch forever into eternity before they would turn into years is that the days do not stretch forever. The days are numbered. And what once seemed like forever is now anything but forever as I am writing these words staring down the barrel of approximately 750 days left. I am in the home stretch, but I don't feel like jumping for joy as I once thought I would so many years ago when I was staring down at an infinity of days. Funny how perspective and time change things, huh?

I just want to spend these next two years loving my kids passionately, laughing with them deeply, learning with them wisely, and being with them intentionally. I want to spend these next two years with my eyes wide open. Because when I blink these two years will be gone, and I want to make sure that I enjoy this last chapter of our family's life as it is right now with every ounce of my being. I want to live fully and be fully alive. I want to know when this time is up that I have done the best that I could. That I have absolutely no regrets.