I Can Not Peel Those off My Heart

Kids grow like weeds, don’t they?

Nothing fills me with quite as much pride as watching my kids grow up and become more independent. I’ve encouraged their autonomy. And my eyes became satiated countless times over with tears for these extraordinary little beings that I’ve helped to create.

However, mixed in with tears of joy are more than a few tears of sadness consisting of both nostalgia and melancholy. My proud smile faltered sometimes, as clear-cut realizations hit me like a ton of bricks. Like in the shower this morning… I realized that each step they took towards independence was yet another step they took away from me. It’s something I still find tough to swallow..

I’m not sure why it caught my focus this morning because there had been thousands of showers just like it. My morning routine had been established to beat the many-years-ago tinies upcoming vivification. A moment of solitude for myself before the simoon of tears and tantrums. It took every ounce of fortitude and resiliency I had in my inventory to prepare myself for the day ahead… But now things have changed, they are all teenagers—I’m no longer needed like I once was.

The Styrofoam fish stickers in various shades of apple red, parakeet green and Prussian blue are still stuck on my shower wall. I placed them there while my babies were still, babies. I convinced myself that removing them was a hundred-to-one undertaking, and nothing short of a blowtorch would take them off. The colors are still as vivid as they once were. The memories all came deluging back overwhelming the spray that came out of the shower’s head.

In times bygone that chaos gave me purpose—time, it took off without me, without my permission. Despite this the reminiscences remain in my heart, and they are both many-splendored and spirited. It’s something I pray never peels off. First and foremost, they’ll always be my babies, isn’t that correct? And this, it suits me perfectly fine.