One day, they’re glued to your hip… and the next, it’s a heft to even get those not-so-little feet off the ground!
‘You’re getting so heavy!!’
We all say, without even thinking!
Contrary to what that perma-strain in your back and the seeming weakness in your arms might say, however, those ‘babies’ are only ever getting LIGHTER, with each advancing year!
This fact hadn’t occurred to me, until I stumbled across another post by a parent (albeit the handle now eludes) who likened growing children to balloons. 🎈
In other words, we commit the years to filling them with love, security and wisdom, causing them to inflate with such confidence, independence, intelligence and curiosity, that the ties that bind gradually loosen, thereby making letting go… an inevitability.
Oh the irony, of how that which encapsulates the joy and sanctity of childhood, can also be a metaphor for it’s very inescapable impermanence?
Normally, I wouldn’t buy into #enjoyeverymoment tropes, but for some reason, this one struck a chord…
Why?
Because it validates what I’ve long feared: that the physical load which might be relieved by the closing of that ‘lifting-into-bed’ chapter…is by no means relinquished.
Instead, it is simply transferred, in a reposition that inevitably weighs heavier on the heart, than it ever did on the arms.