Ticket to Ride

So I'm sitting here rifling through this PILE of invites my kiddos have received for summer birthday parties, class get togethers, scouting soirees and I start thinking to myself (which is kind of a dangerous thing)

Self? When did your offspring start having a more active social life than you have?

And then I remembered, it all started with "play dates" And that was SEVEN years ago for my oldest son.

Which started me on two random yet completely related stream of consciousness meanderings.

Play dates. Can I tell you how ridiculous that whole phrase sounds?

Play dates??? When I was gowing up, we didn't have play dates. We met in the cul de sac every morning in the summer or during the school year after 3pm and planned our own "play dates".

Reality check. I know that it's a scary world. Always has been. And I know things have changed, but not as much as lots of folks seem to think. Long conversations with my parents and inlaws have given me insight on that one.

So I made a decision this summer....to let go.

And what does that mean?

It means my kids can walk down the street to the cul de sac (after telling me where they are going) and play, coming back when they are ready.

It means they can ride their bikes on our street without me sitting at the top of the driveway watching.

It means they can head off to the pool on foot, scooter or bike (with me 5 minutes behind)

I'm letting go, which means............

Change

My oldest will be 10 in a few short months.

How did that happen?

Of course I KNOW how it happened. I just can't seem to remember when. All I have are the lyrics from Aerosmith's "Don't want to miss a thing" playing on some kind of cosmic mommy loop in my head.

What I do know for sure... from this point on, the ride is accelerating into a fast and furious looping spiral and if I blink my eyes, I will miss it.

And I don't want to miss it.

I want to soak up every scary, hairy, wonderful, sublime, wacky, wild, challenging, tender, lovely moment of it.

Ten years from now, they will be gone. Flown the coop. And I will have (statistically speaking) another 40 years to be me. (Another scary thought. I really must stop spending so much time online)

In the meantime, they are in MY park and I have a ticket to ride. And I am going to let go, with my eyes wide open, hands in the air and screaming with equal parts fear and delight.

Because at the end of my life, I want to know and I want my boys to know that I lived my life facing my fears and also without fears.

Let it ride