It is when our children were in their toddler and preschool years that I came to understand the back and forth, the yin and yang of change.
With each stage of growing independence and change, there would be two steps forward and one back. They would take their first steps towards that independence in walking, and become more parent-needy. They would move from crib to bed, and become even more attached to their teddy. They would excitedly start preschool one day, and play ever the more intentionally with their siblings the next.
Children are not alone in this response to change.
As an adult, I find as my summer break ends and I head back to work, within days I am longing for time with my loves. When the road trip starts I look forward to not having to prepare meals, but on the drive home I am excitedly planning a menu for the days after we return home. All those years of longing for the kids to grow up to adulthood … then we miss their daily presence.
Change is never easy,
you fight to hold on
and you fight to let go.
This reality is not necessarily negative, as a matter of fact, it is most healthy to both strive for something new, while mourning that which is behind. That is the life balance that we are all playing with, no doubt, all throughout our lives. The past being like a teddy bear, to run back to and embrace … just a one-step-back kind of embrace.
And so we keep moving forward, we keep changing and growing, not forgetting where our strength to change came from.
itsawonderfilledlife 