Surprising myself

When Firstborn was a baby, I literally would stress myself to tears thinking about sending him to Kindergarten. I could not imagine ever being okay with leaving him somewhere, out of my sight, in the care of others, for a whole school day. It seemed completely out of my capabilities. I literally started to cry thinking about the panic and the anxiety of not knowing what he was doing all day long.

This week, I applied to send him to sleepaway camp this summer, several states away.

Now, I haven't entirely revolutionized. I plan to drive him to camp, to drop him off and pick him up myself, and to stay relatively nearby while he is there (it helps that we have family close). I declined to send him for the two weeks he wanted and stood firm that one week is plenty for his first time away. He will be nine years old when he goes, and that in and of itself has me both gasping in disbelief and wiping away tears. NINE YEARS OLD. The baby that made me a mother is almost nine whole years old.

In these nine years, I have obviously changed and evolved so much as a mother (and, of course, as a person in general). My increasing ability to let go is probably the quality that surprises me and makes me the most proud, because there were times there at the beginning that I feared I would never get to this point.I feared more than anything the searing pain of figuring out how to let him grow up.

I never had the chance to go away to summer camp, and it is something I always wanted to do. A few people mentioned that others were sending their children this year, some with horror and some with awe, and I started to think about it. I brought up the subject to Firstborn, thinking maybe next year would be a good time to try it. "What would I do there?" he asked. I listed the activities from the camp websites: archery, canoeing, swimming, pottery, art, hiking, climbing... "I want to go this summer," he stated with no hesitation whatsoever. And thus, I had to readjust and recalibrate and start researching camps.

I watched the camp video this morning. It made me cry. This time, the tears are not at the thought of having to leave my child with someone else; instead, they are because my child has the chance to take such an adventure and explore the world by himself for a time. I am going to miss him, but in some ways, I miss him all the time -- his little baby toes, his sleepy baby head, his stubborn toddler face, his little boy body. I bought him deodorant, much to his indignation, last week. This letting go, it doesn't just mean summer camp. I'm proud of both of us for getting this far, I am excited about what's to come, but it doesn't mean it doesn't still make me cry. A little.