🥺 What bravery is.

Or: how you can endure your heart breaking even as you feel it growing.

There is a lot I love about life right now. And a lot I hate.

Endless, sunny summer days extending into September, kind, social neighbors, long bike rides, a casita for our projects and games, baristas who remember your name already…. love.

Watching your kids go through the hell of new everything… seeing the panic in your 9yos eyes as you have to firmly disentangle your hands from her hands and walk away - arming her only with the words “you are brave, you are strong” - hate. Like reallyreally hate. Seeing your 12 year old get sucked into the masses of a 1000 kid middle school with nothing more than “Good luck!” and “I love you!” - hate.

Seeing the kindness of kids reaching out to befriend mine - tentative smiles, little jokes, time spent together - the beginnings of new bonds - love. Hearing stories of recess and lunch adventures even as they facetime their friends at home - seeing the new start to weave into the old - love.

Feeling completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of new things to be on top of - emails upon emails - volleyball assessments, musical auditions, math homework to help decipher (7th grade kids doing 9th grade math 🙃), textbooks to order, pictures to print, french to help conjugate (qu'est-ce que c’est beau-fille?) - hate.

Breathe.

I tell myself the same thing I tell my 9 year old: one thing at a time and we’ll do it together.

The past three weeks have been a grinder on top of a past three months that have been challenging, on top of a year that has been nonstop.

But this morning: my sassy middle schooler grabbed her things and walked into school stilling reciting the monologue she’ll be auditioning with later today, after flag football try-outs. And my kind, big-hearted 5th grader showed us what bravery really is, by walking away from me and up those stairs by herself for the first time - still not loving it but doing it anyway.

Yes we can do hard things. But fuck - it’s hard for a reason.

Every fiber of our being is telling us no. Danger. Don’t do it.

And for kids it’s just that much harder - they haven’t built up the muscle memory, the intuition, the tools to know it’ll be okay and how to make it be all okay. Of course these experiences will teach them this.

But it is quite literally the worst thing in the world as a parent to be the reason they’re going through it. To see the pain and know that not only is there only so much you can do, that you are the reason behind it.

Two things can be true: that you know it’ll be okay/ they’ll be the better for it AND you hate that you made your family go through this and you want to just grab them and make a run for it.

Life is not predictable and feeling comfortable and surety - it’s messy and heartbreaking and uneven.

But: as my little firecracker showed me this morning: one foot in front of the other.

We’ve got this.