Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home.\u00a0 Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that after today things will never quite be the same again, and that breaks my heart…<\/p>\n
It is the end of this era of life and nothing I do will change that. \u00a0No amount of crying is going to bring those growing up years back again.\u00a0 My time of raising my babies in my home has come to an end and I am going to have to face that and find a way to deal with it, and that scares me to death.<\/p>\n
For 21 years the core of my identity has been being \u201cmom\u201d to my two kids.\u00a0 My every waking thought has been on them, my every day has centered around thoughts of them and what they need and what I can do to help them and how I can protect them and keep them safe.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how, after 21 years to simply say \u201cmy job is done\u201d.\u00a0 This morning it was my job to be mom first, and tonight my job changes to friend and support first and mom second.\u00a0 And knowing that rips my heart out\u2026it really does\u2026so tonight I am going to allow the tears to continue flowing because I earned those tears the last 21 years and I figure I am entitled to them.\u00a0 But after I allow myself to fall apart crying tonight, I also know that I need to commit to myself to wake up tomorrow smiling and okay again.<\/p>\n
It is critical that I genuinely commit to be okay again tomorrow because like every other day before, the sun is going to rise tomorrow and life is going to go on and I can either curl up in a little ball and cry it away or I can wake up with a smile and embrace that there is still life to live and there is still much to accomplish in life.\u00a0 Sure it is going to be hard because there will be this constant hole in my heart that aches to have my babies home with me\u2026I wouldn\u2019t be a true mother if I didn\u2019t have that hole in my heart when they are gone\u2026but that hole can\u2019t stop me from accepting that there is a time for every season and purpose under heaven and the season for my purpose to be raising my kids has now come to its end and God has a new season with a new purpose that I need to discover\u00a0still\u00a0ahead of me and I can\u2019t do that if I am curled up in the fetal position in my bedroom crying.\u00a0 So tomorrow I am determined to be okay again and look forward to the future with anticipation and hope.<\/p>\n
But tonight\u2026well tonight belongs to nursing that hole in this mothers heart\u2026I love you baby girl and I am going to miss you with every fiber of my being.\u00a0 You are my sweet baby and no matter how old you are and how far away you move that won\u2019t change that you are mine and you can always come home to snuggle with me anytime you need to.\u00a0 Love always, Mom.<\/p>\n
~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home.\u00a0 Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that after today things will never quite be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1002,174,500,101,46,63,999,240,4857,1713,1735,1966,4855,179,2186,2644,51,33,7,29,3527,4853,4852,463,598,464,2839,35,1108,990,138,415,1231,390,1668,1662,2789,81,4854,1734,78,4856,1188,173],"class_list":["post-4918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accomplish","tag-anxiety","tag-appreciation","tag-ashley","tag-attitude","tag-blessings","tag-child","tag-children","tag-come-home","tag-concern","tag-cry","tag-crying","tag-curl-up-in-a-ball","tag-dalton","tag-embrace","tag-fall-apart","tag-family","tag-friend","tag-future","tag-god","tag-grief","tag-heartbroken","tag-hole-in-my-heart","tag-home","tag-job","tag-joy","tag-life-goes-on","tag-love","tag-loved-one","tag-mom","tag-mother","tag-motherhood","tag-protect","tag-purpose","tag-sad","tag-sadness","tag-season","tag-smile","tag-sun-is-going-to-rise","tag-tears","tag-time","tag-times","tag-tomorrow","tag-worry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4919,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4918\/revisions\/4919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}