The Beginning of the Letting Go

Because L started preschool. My tiny girl, who hasn’t been away from us for more than a few hours every few months since her birth, is now being shipped off daily. By me. Because E has a summer job, and I have to work.

Yes, we could have hired a nanny. Why didn’t we? Simply this: she’s beyond ready for structure and learning and social time. She’s ready to be with other kids. But knowing this, believing this, doesn’t help much when she looks at me with tear-filled eyes as we’re getting ready to walk out the door at 7 a.m. and says, “Wanna stay home” in a quavery little voice that has the power to slay me on the spot. Or in the afternoons, when she’s napping in her own bed, anxiously repeating “My mama’s coming to get me!” over and over in her sleep.Yeah. Heart ripped out.

I know she’ll adjust. My rational side tells me that tears are normal and she’s really and truly going to be okay. In fact, she’s going to thrive. But that doesn’t stop the nausea. Or the guilt. Or the hourly desire to go back and get her and tell her she never, ever has to leave again.

I want to call up all my working-mom friends whose kids are in child care or school and say, Why didn’t you warn me that this was going to feel like a second bout of postpartum depression? Why didn’t you tell me I was going to feel like I’m losing part of my child on a daily basis? Why didn’t you tell me about the guilt?

Because I feel like I’m losing some part of her daily. I’m missing out on five hours, hours I’ve never missed. She comes home with new words and stories and every day she is just a little bit different than when I dropped her off that morning. Tiny changes, but changes nonetheless. And it’s made me feel positively sick.Is this where the letting go begins? I want to say, God, I’m not ready. Can we please rewind?

Maybe it’s not like this for everyone. I know there are some mamas who are desperate for a bit of space, and a half day of preschool for their littles feels like fresh air so they can breathe again. Me, I just feel shredded. Lost. Like everything is backwards or inside out. Like we’ve turned some corner and now we can never go back and I didn’t expect this sort of – well, grief.

Will the first day of kindergarten feel like this? The first day of first grade? Middle school? High school? The college drop off? Probably. The reality is that I’m probably going to feel this way a hundred more times as she grows up.

I know that we’ll get through it. I know that eventually, she’ll smile and kiss me goodbye. Eventually, she might even object to being picked up halfway through the day – she’ll want to stay and play. That day will be hard, too, in its own way.Yep, it’s the beginning of the letting go. I can’t welcome it yet. I can’t fake a smile and say I’m glad it’s here. So I won’t try. I’m just going to admit that it takes everything in me to be brave each morning, to cheerfully tell her how much fun she’s going to have at school, to turn my back and walk out on my sobbing girl. I’ll even admit that there might be some tears in the car on the way home every morning, that I count the minutes until noon, that when I tuck her in for her nap, it’s with massive relief that she’s back.

This motherhood thing? It’s rough, people.