It feels unnatural to come to this space, to write.

Not that I haven’t written. I’ve been working from home, writing mostly marketing copy for a social media advising company. It has really helped maintain a more adult vocabulary and interpersonal interaction way better than my usual stay at home mom activities. It is also helping to fill the income gap left when my husband accepted a lower paying job at a company where the owners and operators actually have souls and feelings, as opposed to his former employers who just wanted money, however they could get it, in order to maintain their cushy lifestyle.

Slowly, writing has brought me more into “true” adulthood. It filled the tiny gaps brought on by revisiting childhood with my own kids, just as I had begun to make forward progress into adulthood prior to their birth.

But there’s something else that feels unnatural, and leaves gaps of varying sizes.

It’s knowing that my baby, my first baby, the child who made me a mother, has begun to grow wings and fly.

She just finished her third week as a kindergartener. And, while it may be becoming routine, it is really no easier now than it was that first day. At least for me. She’s flourishing.

The time I have with her to teach and play is minimal, and always interrupted by the need to maintain our loose schedule for the sanity of all of us.

The time we have to work through her feelings has also diminished, but it’s obvious she has learned how to juggle them. It’s not perfect yet, and probably never will be, but she doesn’t need to lean anymore. She can stand on her own until she hits a bump that needs guidance. She is slowly conquering her emotions and anxiety.

And increasing mine. Anxiety and I are old “friends,” I’ve mastered those bumps. But the emotions? I’ve never been an outwardly emotional person, I tend to write out or bury my feelings, but there is so much more tangible emotion watching my babies grow.

Is this a quirk unique to me? Or is this something that mothers go through?