Letting Him Go

In less than 24 hours, my first- born child will be turning 13. As in, the beginning of the teens. The teens that end in twenties. Which means college. And adulthood. And independence.  And I have to admit, I’m kind of freaking out about it. The Jewish culture actually celebrates 13 as the age when a boy becomes a man. I don’t know what boys were like 3,000 years ago, and Ross is one of the few 7^th graders who actually could benefit from a razor, but aside from that, thankfully there’s nothing too frighteningly adult about Ross (except his little old soul, which has been going on 60 since he was about 2 years old.)

Ross is also one of the few 7^th graders who is about to realize his life-long dream (hopefully he will pick a new one, because it would be sad to peak at just over a decade). In one week, my 13 year old boy will be getting on a plane and going to Paris, Lucerne, and Munich with a group from his middle school. And I have to let him go. I want to let him go….. I have to let him go. Ross is the youngest Francophile I have ever met. We took him to Epcot in Florida when he was five, and ever since he watched the CircleVision movie about France, it has been all-Paris, all the time. He couldn’t wait to learn French. He has eaten escargot, moules, and has even cooked Coq a Vin, all because they had a snooty whiff of France about them. He has a freaking oversized portrait of the Eiffel tower over his bed, for crying out loud. So, without question, of course I have to let him go. (OK, that’s a lie. I asked many, many questions.)

If you think about it, this isn’t even close to the first time I have had to let go, and is nowhere near the last. Sleeping through the night. Staying with Grandma. Going to school. Going to sleep-away camp. These stair steps are designed to help little birdies learn to fly on their own, and away from the nest one day, to start their own nests.

So, if this is the natural progression, I have to pause and wonder… What the HELL is wrong with NATURE??!? What kind of a sadistic system is it that makes you think it’s YOUR idea to have a child, then says, “Thanks, we’ve got it from here” and starts creating a person out of your cells while you sit there stunned, the unwitting vehicle for some bait -and switch- plan that has been around since the beginning of time? Then, this person arrives (and by the way, if the whole point is to get them to arrive, WHY does it have to be so painful?? I have questions!) and chemically, physically, mentally, emotionally forever re-arranges your personal universe so that it can never, ever (EVER) NOT have him as the center of it again!

You are dying for a break from the kids, but when you finally get one, you realize you can’t ever really take a break because you will never (EVER) entirely be able to stop thinking about them. You are dying for them to get just a little bit older, a little more independent, and then as soon as they do, you are heartbroken because your baby is growing up and doesn’t need you. You are dying for them to be old enough to stay home alone just for a little while so you can go to the grocery store in peace (because we aim high and dare to dream big, eh??) And then they’re finally old enough to stay home, so you worry about whether or not they’re ok when they’re out of your sight. And they get on big, yellow busses without seatbelts, that drive away towards scary mountain roads as they laugh and sing and celebrate their new found freedom. And you wave and know that the pain in your heart and the pit of your stomach are holding their place until they return.

I know there is more to come. Hell, we have the whole mountain to climb. These are just the foothills. They’ll be out in the big world without a chaperone, without us, and we’ll have to hold our breaths and trust they will be fine. They will learn to drive and then every single crazy driver we’ve ever come across had better beware, because our babies are in their midst. Breakable, irreplaceable. And we have to trust they will come home, safe and sound. They will grow and learn and thrive and anxiously await their place in the big world, at college, in their own apartments. With their own friends and schedules and rules and plans. And we will have to trust that the people we raised and taught and poured our time and our hearts and souls into are showing the world their own way.  To hope that life brings them people to hold in their hearts the way we hold them in ours, with all the joy and pain and learning that goes with it.

And one day, they might sit up, as I am now, thinking about the people they love more than they knew was possible, and realizing that this love is what their parents must have felt for them. As I now understand.

I have to let him go. I want to let him go. As much as he belongs to every fiber of my being, and I can’t breathe with the thought of something happening to him, I have to remember. It’s all an illusion. He was never really mine to begin with.