This past weekend we dropped our eldest child at college.
Everyone warned me that it was going to be hard. And it was.
I feel incredibly lucky to have kids that I both love and like. Truly, if you asked me who I’d like to have dinner with live or dead, my answer would be: “My adult kids, far into the future… because I am dying to know how the story ends.”
So, leaving half of my heart in Texas over the weekend wasn’t easy. But that was to be expected.
Yes, I stared at him nonstop, trying to remember every last second. Yes, I spent most of my private moments (and one public goodbye) all sappy faced and teary eyed. Yes, I mommed so hard and made him pick out all of the dorm room snacks. Sue me: it’s a professional hazard.
But, then there is this part that no one tells you about: the good bits. The part where every new ending is also a new beginning.
Seeing them on the precipice of their next phase, introducing themselves as a clean slate as this grown version. Watching them set up their room, putting things right where they want them in their own space. Looking at them in the way that new friends will see them, as a college student future facing, and endlessly promising.
I tell ya, it was an emotional roller coaster. My heart was breaking and bursting all at the same time, and by the end I couldn’t figure out which was which.
But here is what I know to be true: me, you, and everyone who will read this blog post when you post it on social media is actually in exactly the same place.
We intentionally elect to remind ourselves of past failures instead of looking ahead to future opportunities. We actively choose to be weighted down by the baggage of who we were rather than writing the story of who we want to become. We purposefully remind ourselves and others about where we have been and in the effort choke the oxygen out of where we are going.
Yes, the past shapes us, molds us, builds us. But it doesn’t define us. We can choose each day to start our next phase, to grab our future, to live into the new us. (Tweet this.)
Fresh starts aren’t just for our college freshman. As my friend Chris Brogan likes to say, “Every picture is a before picture.” This picture is my son’s “before” picture. But it’s also mine.
And it’s yours, too.
These endings? They just make way for new beginnings.
