Raising Anchor 8/15/2021

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I am not ready.  I thought I was going to be but that was when this moment was what seemed like eons away.  You know how some things feel like they are in a future so distant that there really is no point in concerning yourself with them now?  Oh but those moments do not participate in your procrastination and they continue to come at a pace that I can only compare to some mixture of racehorses and lightning.  I have all the literal supplies that I need for this moment but I am finding that inside me I am overwhelmingly underprepared.  It isn’t even something I must dig deep to find because the cascade of emotions is bubbling out of me like an artesian well I’m finding.  And perhaps cascade wasn’t the best word to use, I think of a lovely small waterfall in a beautiful lush forest when I use that term and this is no such thing.  This is something more akin to a broken water main and things are gushing about at a maddening rate and you aren’t really sure what to do other than try in a ridiculously futile way to wedge your hands over the flow and that really isn’t accomplishing anything but it’s the best you can do.  That was a rambling description but it ridiculously applicable.  The gargantuan moment to which I am referring is that my one, my only child begins the 13 year march of school this week.  Yes, it’s just kindergarten; probably not the heights of academia. But it is so much more.

How do people do this?  How do people just let their little people just mosey off into the big wide world all nonchalantly?  They are a magical mixture of independent and dependent all at once.  I suppose that is what makes your average five year old so intriguing. They can go make up their own game or song and play in depth for hours, but don’t ask them to eat apple slices dipped in peanut butter unless you want to find it on every surface within a three county radius. I mean how does she get it in her eyebrows?  But I digress, as I often do.  The little person you do best to shape and mold all of the sudden is thrust into society and you hope and pray that all your molding and shaping holds and that life doesn’t undo the foundations you’ve tried to build.  I have high hopes though.  My daughter was talking about being an adult the other day and I asked her what she wanted her future husband to be like and she gave me this answer: “He should have short hair and a kind smile”.  I think for the aspirations of a five year old that’s pretty good. Even at her age she knows a truly kind face is hard to fake.  Now do know that while her heart is downright golden, she isn’t particularly keen on change, losing or sharing so it may not in fact be 24 karat just yet, but it is a strong 18 and we are working on things.  I hope her school experience teaches her far more than reading, writing and arithmetic.  I hope her propensity to kindness is intensified. I pray her sarcastic wit (that she came by honestly from her mother and grandmother) make her ridiculously endearing. I hope and pray so many things though.

Also, am I the only one that seems a bit aghast that I am about to send this soul off to something she will have to do for the next thirteen years?!?!?  I mean my goodness that is almost a decade and a half!  I don’t want to use this term, but knowing that this shall be the task at hand for 5 days a week for three quarters of a year for this many years, well I am sorry but the term drudgery keeps coming to mind. I know that it is important and beneficial and all those positive spins but…MY STARS!  That just seems like a lot to put upon a person, especially a small person.  I know I did it. I know we all did it for the most part.  I also know it will fly by but goodness gracious! I guess seeing it for the first time from the angle of the sender instead of the sendee, it is just a bit staggering.  No, I haven’t sent my child off to the mines but it certainly does feel like I just gave her a long term job!  But enough of such talk! I shouldn’t bemoan what I know will be an amazing experience. I am sure after several years in this will all be old hat and just the way things are but I would be very dishonest if I said that right now I don’t feel like I have just given a burden far too immense to shoulders far too delicate.  But no. No. Stop.  The world is big and wide and wonderful.  I must remember that this will be an adventure.

Yes, adventures can be fraught with peril.  There will be ups and downs on this journey of this I am (perhaps too) keenly aware.  But there will be joy.  There will be friendships that will change the course of life.  There will be lessons learned and experiences that will bring about growth and bloom.  It is scary for the chick to leave the nest for both mama bird and fledgling and I suppose it should be.  But beyond that first frightening step and those first few frantic wing flaps…oh the view, the magical wonder of it all! Yes, letting my little girl raise anchor and set off to sea (no I am not being overly dramatic, it is an appropriate analogy) is frightening to say the least.  But I must remember as the old saying goes, “Ships in harbor are safe, but that is not what ships are for.”  So, to the people of faith, pray for my family as the journey of a thousand miles begins with this single step. And, despite whatever tears may be shed, both on boat and on shore, let the adventure begin.