Firsts

All Summer, I’ve been thinking about how different this Fall is going to be from any Fall I’ve ever had, and certainly different from any Fall my little family has experienced together. My big-little is starting real, actual school, and I’ve known this. My little-little starts preschool, which is but the precursor to real, actual school. I am finding, however, that the reality is very much more difficult and wonderful and heartbreaking than I realized it would be. Much different to merely think about an eventuality in an abstract way.

They were super nervous, the kindergartener and the preschooler. Both still are, but I think every day will get better and easier for them (and for me).

Because this is the start of it. The start of a lifetime of school. Of her, of them, getting older and older and more and more someone else’s. Their own, the system’s, the world’s. Less just mine. Less just ours.

Of course, they will always be ours and we will always be theirs. We’ll always play and swing and laugh with them. We’re a unit, whether we spend our days together or apart. There will be many firsts, and we will be there for them, supporting and loving these little ladies, and then walking away, tears in eyes, so they can do what they need to do themselves. No matter how hard it is.