"I Don't Ever Want to Go to College," My son the night before Kindergartner

He's always been wise beyond his years

He has been having and expressing big thoughts since before he was two. Not big for a two-year-old. Big. The kind that start somewhere ordinary and then follow a logic rollercoaster, and keep going until they arrive somewhere a small body can't hold. He has always thought further ahead than he can carry. He has always wanted to know too much about how time and everything else in life works.

So we taught him to breathe early. In through the nose, out slow, before he was even two. He has had that tool almost as long as he's had the thoughts. Last night, like many that go down a rabbit hole, he needed it.

Before brushing his teeth he ran into our bed and hid in the pillows to cover his tears. He didn't want to start school tomorrow. So I told him the truth. That I got nervous before school every year — not some years, every year. That I cried. That I cried the last year of high school and going to college, too, at eighteen. And then I told him the good part, the part I was so sure would land: that if I had never gone to college, I never would have met Dada. And if I had never met dada, he wouldn't be here. So scary doesn't mean bad, it just means new.

I was trying to hand him proof. That the scary thing is survivable. That it's the door everything good comes through. That he exists because somebody was scared and went anyway. But he heard something else. He heard: one day you will leave. So some more questions came and went and tears subsided.

He asked me to help him breathe as he often does. So we slow breathed together in and out three times. Afterward he told me it worked, reporting it back to me carefully, like data, like he was confirming a result. And I told him yes reminding him that's your superpower, and you can use it all day tomorrow, any time you need it, and it will still work if I'm not there.

But later after saying goodnight, out of the blue came

"I don't ever want to go to college mama."

That's where it landed, at bedtime, on a Monday. Because in his logical full fleshed out mind, if he went to college, nobody would sleep in his bed. And more importantly, he can't sleep anywhere that is far away from us.

He is five. He was not crying about kindergarten. He was crying about the direction time moves in — which I had just handed him myself, gift-wrapped, as what I thought was comfort.

He said he'd miss us

And then, underneath the big thing, a small one. The extra time. School goes a little later this year, and he wanted to know if he'd be back before dinner! Forty-five minutes later than last year — and last year, he was away two hours longer than that.

So after reassuring him it's only two episodes of Paw Patrol longer, I asked him. Not about the schedule. I asked him what he was actually scared of about the extra time.

He said he'd miss us.

That's the whole thing. That's all it ever is. Not the clock, not the classroom, not the drop-off line. The missing. So I said what we always say. The four things, in the same order, the way we've said them a thousand times in the dark. You are okay. You are safe. You are healthy. You are loved. And that I will miss him too, but we are only six minutes away, we have our heart strings connected and we'll play when you get back.

Five affirmations and a kiss in his palm.

This morning he was holding back tears and trying to smile at the same time. Both at once. His whole face doing two jobs. If you've seen it, you know how the look alone could break a heart. He told me he was going to try not to cry. Not because crying is bad — because if he cried, his shirt would get wet. (my heart)

I told him it was still okay if he needed to. And then I told him the thing I have been repeating to myself ever since: every day after today is easier, because it isn't the first time anymore.

Before leaving the car in the parking lot, we restarted our before-school ritual. I say "I am." He fills in the blank.

"I am brave. I am smart. I am strong. I am kind. I am loved."

Then a hug. Then the kissing hand (Chester the raccoon and his mama, the kiss pressed into the palm so you can hold it against your cheek when you're far from home, can confirm we have both reached for it midday.)

Then we got out and walked.

Funny sidebar: Along the walk in the parking lot he sneezed and produced the single largest booger bubble I have ever witnessed, and we turned around and went back to the car to wipe it. It was not funny this morning, but it is going to be a very funny memory in a few weeks.

"It didn't work this time, mama"

He was brave the whole walk. We each clenched the other's hand and I am not going to pretend I know which of us was holding on harder. Then came the handoff. The crowd, the line, the noise, the not knowing where to stand or who to follow. And the tears welled up. So I hugged him to fill him up as we call it. He asked me to breathe again with him and I did. But unfortunately this time he said "It didn't work this time mama."

As I fought back tears, I told him we'd hug one more time but then he's on his way because we're only making it worse — and I handed him over. He walked away without looking back.

I don't know if the tears stopped. I don't know if he was trying to hold it in. I don't know if he just didn't want me to see him cry. All I knew was he was in. He did it. We did it. We got through the hardest part...

Then I got in the car alone

Until, I got in the car alone. Until I relived every little detail, moment, face, thought, and concern he expressed over the last 15 hours. But hey, sometimes you just need an ugly cry, right moms? The feeling of pride and promise of who they are and are becoming, memories of the first steps to the hand offs and everything in between. The feeling of he's ready, and oh no did I do enough. It all floods at once with no "hand off" or ceremony to prepare us.

Now here's what I've been sitting with all morning.

Where the fear goes

For five years I have been the place his fear goes. Every rabbit hole, every enormous thought about time and leaving and beds and college and the like — it comes to me, and I hold it, and I try to work it and hand it back to him in a size he can carry. That isn't a job we applied for nor something we've been trained in. It's just what a parent is tasked to do. It's who we become the day our littles were born.

And this morning I handed a small, anxious, extraordinarily bright boy to a stranger and watched him go carry it by himself. He'll be fine. I know he'll be fine. He has all the tools he needs, plus everything we did - the breathing and the five words and a kiss in his palm and a teacher whose entire morning was built to receive children who are scared.

The hard part of Labor Day

And it isn't only this morning. It's the weekend that came before it. Nobody tells you that the hard part of Labor Day is the goodbye. Not to summer — to this version of them. That was the last 'summer' weekend they will ever be this small. Next summer there will be a whole new kid inside that body. Taller, funnier, a little further away, with more opinions and negotiations about what we do on Saturdays. I will love him. He will not be this.

So you close one hard chapter — the loud, sticky, no-schedule, they-need-you-for-every-single-thing one — and the very next morning you open another one. Your biggest little walks into a big school for nearly half of his waking hours, with no contact. No check-in an app. No easy way to reach him and no way for him to reach you. You just have to wait and find out how he did.

That's the trade, every September. You hand back the version of him you had all summer, and at pickup you get somebody new — somebody who had a whole day you weren't in.

Nobody warns you about the day your job quietly changes. There's no countdown for that one, no book, no ritual, no line to stand in. It happened at 8:40 this morning in a parking lot, without ceremony, and the day went on.

Last night I told him that new, scary things is how you learn, have fun, and grow — that I got on a campus at eighteen crying my eyes out and that's the only reason he exists. This morning I sat in a parking lot and tried to believe my own story. I told him it gets easier because it isn't the first time anymore.

So, similarly, I said the other thing out loud, alone, to nobody — the four I've said to him a thousand times and needed to hear myself. You are okay. You are safe. You are healthy. You are loved. I said them again until I mostly believed them. Last night I promised him his superpower of breathing still works when nobody's counting at the other end. This morning I put it in practice, that I was telling the truth.

You are okay. You are safe. You are healthy. You are loved.

In case you dropped someone off today too: it's your first time. And I'm speaking to you as well as myself. You are allowed to be completely wrecked about it. Change is hard. Transitions are hard. New things are scary no matter how old we are. And it does get easier — not because you toughen up, but because you'll have done it before. Fill yourself up. Somebody has to. They'll be back before dinner. I checked. ;)

---

For those looking for additional help in getting through transitions and difficult high demand times, I built The Shift. It's for the transitions where everyone else gets a plan and the mother gets a schedule. Founding cohort starts Sunday; enrollment closes Friday.