Just Write {107}

This morning waking up felt like it had something to do with quicksand. I made us run late, but just a “it’s going to be okay” from Ryan reminded me not to freak out about it. The boys helped get Elsie up and ready and that made me smile. I brought her next door and another mom was dropping off her boy and I told the room, “I overslept. LIKE A BOSS.”

They just stared at me, and my bedhead and probably the lines still creased into my cheek. Okay then! SeeyaBYE!

I’m still walking Asher in to school these days, it’s what he needs. But I wanted less people looking at my bedhead and creases, so I told Miles he would need to walk Asher today, down his hallway. He said yes without complaining, which made me smile.

LIKE A BOSS.

I am very sneaky and proud to have a backup plan on mornings like today. I don’t wait in line for drop off, I got in a different parking lot and I drive right up to the blocking off orange cones and drop the boys there, and they go through the office in the front door, like they would if I parked and took them in. When I do this, I get to watch them, because there is usually no one else waiting there. Today one other minivan pulled up to do the same thing and I felt like we were rebels together. We both watched our kids until they went through the front door, even though it’s just a short sidewalk walk to get in.

Maybe this is what’s so hard about drop-off lines in the mornings. We’re all so busy doing the very thing we’ve gotten used to but our hearts will never do it comfortably. We’re letting go, of control and our kids under our wings and in our sights and something in us rails against us. So we become these incapable, disorganized and somewhat dimwitted humans, unable to simply pull up, get the kids out the doors of the vehicle quickly and drive away, making room for the next caregiver. We can’t do it. All the insides of all the wheeled machines become loud and messy and there is so much fumbling about, as if we’ve never done this before, every day.

Move forward!

We don’t.

We are sabotaging the simple letting go.

One last peck on the cheek, a little more grooming, like apes, we’re picking something out of the ear or hair or nose, or licking a finger and rubbing at breakfast on chubby cheeks. Wait, those cheeks aren’t all that chubby anymore, OH what happened to my baby?

We sit and stare and watch and can’t move forward. This happened again later when I was standing at the counter, eating breakfast (why not sit down? I don’t know.) I was standing and staring out the window, not seeing, thinking hard about one of the ways the boys is so magically himself and about what he will need to be taught, in some very specific way about the world and life and relationships because of this aspect of him….I was thinking so hard and I so badly wanted to calm the chaos of thoughts in my head and make the way for him smooth, into growing up. But I can’t and so the chaos inside goes on like in the car at drop off.

While I watched the boys, earlier, I noticed everything about how they walked to the door. Together, shoulder to shoulder, short and unsure with their steps, Asher pulling up his pants that I suddenly realized were Miles’ pants and wondered should I call his teacher to say he may need help with his pants? Tighten them, they’re that kind with the cinching thing inside the waistband….

No, he’ll be okay. She’ll see it if it’s that big of a problem.

Miles started doing some silly crazy walk and I could see that Asher was laughing, by the way he turned his head just so and how his body did its laughing things.

Just now while typing this I realized I’m forgetting to breathe well again. I was holding my breath like I had to wait for them to come home like this.

Now, I breathe in deep and freeing breaths because that’s how hard it is for me to let go, this is how I am. When I was driving away today I stopped for kids to cross the street and the same cross guards are there every morning. One in one spot, one at the other, keeping post. He looks like Santa, so much like Santa. She could be Santa’s wife, with her short gray hair but they come here separately, every day to do this service work. And I wonder if, as it serves these kids and families, doesn’t it serve them as well? Have their kids grown up and gone off?

Here they are, still shepherding, helping children cross over, safely, from one side to the other. That makes sense to me.

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This is the 107th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the URL of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not freely written in the spirit of capturing moments–you know, don’t link to how-to posts, lists or sponsored posts. Also, please link back to this post in yours so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.

Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word? Thank you!