Letting Go

I had been a wife for five years and teaching for 6 years.  I have a very clear memory of letting go.  Standing in the kitchen, cooking.  Carrying my first baby inside of me.  Talking to my mom, and my heart just flooded with worry for the changes.  Letting go of being just a wife and just working.  Things would never go back to they way they had been.  There was no turning back.

When I close my eyes, I see myself, like a movie.  Waddling, 9 months pregnant with Nola.  I had put Nate to bed like it was a  normal night.  But nothing was normal.  I had contractions all day, and she was coming.  I am on the phone, packing bags.  Terrance is getting in the shower, unlike most dads who wives are awkwardly, waddling, and panting, freezing in mid stride to maintain breathtaking pain.  I am once again, talking to my mom.  We are on the phone.  I remember, I can hear myself saying,  I'm in labor.  She's coming tonight.  This is it, these are the last moments I have as just Nate's mom.  Just a mom of one.  Just one baby.  Letting go.  Things are never the same again.

Driving to work this morning, these moments devoured me.  I stopped on my way down the stairs, and prayed for my kids, as I usually do before I leave them.  I realized I had forgotten lately. Forgotten to pray for them.  I have let go of so many things.  Right now, for the first time in a long time, I am not letting go in these monumental ways, these life changing events.  It's nice to have a peaceful place in my life right now. 

My second thought was that we always have to let go in order to gain.  Watching my babies turn into talking and walking humans, is letting go.  I don't want to let go, but I do.  All at the same time.  I have to let go, to gain.  To see their future. To watch them grow and learn.  To see who we become.