Kindergarten, Part I

I've been trying to figure out how to put this impending milestone into words.  I don't think it can really be done adequately, I just know I have to try.  I also know that I have so much to digest about the situation, that it's going to take a couple of posts to work it all out.  I appreciate your patience in the process.   

I'll start with how I attempted to describe it to David in terms he could relate to:  "It's like you have this hugely important project at your job that you've been working on for over five years.  And not just during office hours.  You have been toiling away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through weekends and holidays.  Of course you sleep...well not a lot in the first year, but some later on.  But even still, this project is the first thing you think of when you open your eyes and one of your last thoughts before you close them at night.  And even when you sleep, it appears in your dreams.  You've spent money, time, and energy and experienced worry, heartache, and joy like you've never known about this project.  Now I want you to imagine you're about to hand this project over to another person for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.  You can help a little now and then during that time, but for the most part, this project is completely in their sometimes capable, sometimes erroneously human hands.  Plus, they have around 20 other projects going on at the same time.  However, you are still responsible for the outcome of your project.  Crazy, right?  Now replace this "project" with a priceless human being that you had a part in creating."  

He nodded slowly as he let the mediocre metaphor sink in.  It seemed to strike a bit of chord.  

I went on to remind him that his weekday time with Audrey was going to essentially be cut in half because she'd have to go to bed earlier.  His forehead creased some more.  

But try as he might, he still doesn't truly get it.  There are few who do.  At the risk of alienating my working mama friends, even they have a different perspective.  Most of them had to let go and say their "goodbyes" at an earlier stage when their children started daycare.  

Then there's David's Great Aunt, with whom I had a good talk at a recent reunion. She described the sight in her rearview mirror of her little one sitting on the steps outside the school on the first day of kindergarten.  She admitted to sobbing the whole way home.  The next day, she put her child on the bus, went inside, and laid on the bathroom floor crying uncontrollably.  She wondered what was wrong with her and if she would ever get over it.  As I listened to her, my eyes welled up with tears and I nodded in agreement.  

"I tried to explain it to David." I said.  She just shook her head 'no'.  She said, "They don't understand.  It's different for them."  It wasn't meant disrespectfully.  It was just a fact.

It only seems overdramatic to those that haven't been there, but this is seriously one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  I know she's not mine.  She is on loan from God.  A gift for me to cherish and treasure and raise up right.  To give roots and wings and all that.  But I'm not ready for her little wings to spread out this much.  They're strong enough, but I don't know if my heart is.  

More later...