I’m a planner.

Not quite in the pinterest way, the color coded calendar way.

My planning is rehearsing tragedies so I’ll be prepared.

My planning is counting calories so I don’t change in size.

My planning is saying I’ll be doing something by a certain age, and when that doesn’t happen I feel anger.

So, when I say I didn’t plan for this, perhaps it’s a good thing.

As my son enters this school year, his first school year, I had anticipated feeling a of sorrow, a bit of joy, a bit of excitement.

I wasn’t planning for the change to register as a loss, and that loss to register as grief.

I’m so grateful, in a way, that I wasn’t planning for anything.

Except, I planned (practiced) gratitude for what is, like this imperfect and convoluted aspects of being human.

Gratitude for the people in my life who have checked in with me this week, you are the ones I trust the most.

Gratitude to feel this feeling, the scraping out of my core that is letting go. That’s what we’re here to do, as parents.

I feel surrender, sacrifice, joy, and letting go fully. That way, in watching us, our little humans know how to do so, too.

That’s the plan from now on. Feel it all so the next generation knows how to, too.