Changes

The tears were fat, warm and as unexpected as they were unwelcome. They rolled down my cheeks and found soft landing on my green tank top.

“You are not an emotional person,” I scolded myself. “What is all of this nonsense about?”

I don’t know why I asked the question — I most certainly knew the answer.

Driving to the high school on the final day of the 2016–2017 school year, Miranda Lambert’s song The House that Built Me was on the radio. If you’ve not heard it, it’s about memories and how you can’t go back home again.

Today was the last day of a job I’d held for sixteen and a half years. This was the last trip I’d be making as official mommy chauffer.

Next year, a parking pass will be attached to the window of my old Tahoe. The battered, rusting truck will occupy a space in the high school parking lot, driven there by a man/child who used to beg me to place his car seat in the third row.

I remember this exact feeling of separation more than a decade ago. We were in the park, surrounded by dozens of preschoolers who had just graduated and would be heading off to kindergarten in the fall. There were stations for snacks, face painting, ring toss, removable tattoos and coloring scattered about on that bluebird day.

Warm tears rolled down my cheeks amidst the chaos. I scolded myself that time, too.

They grow up and leave us bit, by bit.

For as much as I love the progression of life, good-byes are hard for me.

Today I felt my magnum opus picking up speed as he slips through my fingers on the way to his next steps.

I’ve decided it’s OK to feel sad for a minute — just long enough to pick myself up and look for a next step of my own.