The boy who didn’t give a care in the world for trucks when he was little came home from his really grown-up job this week and told me that he was driving a cement truck that day on the highway. My heart skipped a little beat because when was a little boy allowed to go and do such big things? Who decides that a man-child who still can’t remember to bring up his dishes from the basement, can drive a scary truck full of liquid rock?
This mama just can’t wrap her brain around it all.
The little shy girl gets ready and goes to her new job, outside of the safety of our cozy walls. Learning how to interact with people and to use her shaky, quiet voice in a strange new world where you have to have courage when everything inside you wants to run away and stay in familiar places. But off she goes, with much cheering and pushing and she gets through. She comes home with smiles, and wants to go shop for make-up and get rides to see her friends as she slowly emerges from her cocoon and spreads her wings.
This mama’s heart just wants to hold on.
This mama’s heart has to work hard to let go.
They have something the world needs from them.
I know this.
I have to share.
I can’t hold them back.
Lately though, all I can think of are popsicle drips and long summer days that I thought might never end, where I likely raised my voice too much and complained loudly about the mud and the mess and didn’t want to go to the pool because I didn’t like how I looked. I know I muttered under my breath and wished for time by myself with no cares in the world.
But now?
I long for those days.
I’d smile at the popsicle stains on the white shirts.
I’d cuddle into the sweaty little heads.
I’d jump in that pool.
I wouldn’t rush them into bed.
I’d read one more story.
I’d hold on as long as I could.
Those were the days of heart growing. Those were the days when little lives looked up with wide-eyes, waiting for voices to speak into their soul and tell them who they could be, and that they were so loved, and that there was nothing they couldn’t do.
