“Mom, I love it here!
I want to stay.” [Insert my sinking
heart here.]
Both of my children separately uttered these words to me,
unprompted, last week as we were going about our daily living. The kids love their new schools, their
neighborhood, and their routines. Love
with a capital L, maybe even LOVE with all capitals. They are happy, joyful, bursting at the
seams, wanting, wishing that this place is Home. As in permanent home. Or at the very least, longer-than-10-months
home.
Handsome Young Man and Diva Darling are excited for each and
every day. No moping. No dread.
No bullying. Just happy to be
here. Present and in the moment.
I am relieved that
this transition has been easy for them.
(Maybe too easy!)
I may even pat myself on the back for making choices that
have benefited my family. Since the spring, I have prepared them as best I
could about upcoming changes, handling themselves in new situations, making new
friends, being themselves, and having the courage to try new things. It makes my head spin, thinking about how
much has been thrown at them this past summer.
If the Queen Bee is calm, her Busy Bees should be calm too,
right? Although if you truly knew how I
handled this move, calm would not be the first word choice that comes to mind. Our hive has transplanted and is thriving
and buzzing along splendidly in the Deep South.
And yet…
My heart already sinks knowing that staying here is highly unlikely. That this time next year, we will be
somewhere else, most likely a place we have never been before, with new
schools, a new neighborhood, a new routine.
I am already dreading the break-up.
I do not dread the relocation and all the details and
decisions it entails. I dread detaching from here and putting
on my brave face to be the newcomer yet again.
It’s getting harder for me because now it involves watching how my
children will detach themselves from a place that they have grown to love,
watching them insert themselves in a new place.
I can only hope that they will continue to be excited for
each and every day. Today. And one year from today in the new place.
But let me remind myself to not get ahead of myself. I am
happy to be here. I am present and in
the moment. Because it’s not even three
months, and it’s love! Ok, love is a strong word. Although perhaps I
am willing to say I am, surprisingly, rather smitten with Montgomery.
How marvelous that it is my children who, unintentionally, remind me that everything is going to be alright when it is I who thinks I am teaching them life's lessons.
