What Am I Going To Do?

I’m probably not going to say anything here that you’ve never heard before or are seeing in your socials on repeat right now. But here it is (again):

We dropped off our twins at college last weekend.

I am…

So, here’s the truth: I wrote “I am,” got distracted, and now I am not sure what I was going to say. Maybe because what “I am” presently shifts by the hour, but I’ll give it a shot.

I am proud.

I am thrilled for them.

I am beyond excited to see what they will learn and accomplish, and all the ways they will grow.

I am nervous. (Of course I am because I’m me, but also, as Elizabeth Stone beautifully noted, choosing to become a mother is, “to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”)

I am in full trust of their capabilities.

I am unsure what my life is going to look and feel like now.

I am a little heartsore.

(I am a lot heartsore.)

I was home alone one evening back in May. That afternoon, the twins had performed in the school talent show. I was there and I recorded it and I was FINE! But home alone later in my living room, I innocently pressed play on the video and unexpectedly unleashed a torrent of feelings. I sobbed for nearly an hour. Sobs that rose up from the depths of my body and soul. And the phrase I repeated over and over—out loud, mind you, to my empty home—was, “What am I going to do?”

All the things I thought would be the hardest parts of parenting have turned out not to be. I could never have conceived when I held each of my tiny, perfect, unbelievably beautiful six pound babies, all the things that actually have been.

I think that was a blessing.

But here I am doing the hardest thus far.

So, what am I going to do?

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