Sadness

Gabe said to me last night, as I was putting him to bed, that he wanted to spend as much time with his friends as possible before we leave because he is going to miss them. Ugh. I had been living safely in my delusion that they would be too young to really miss their friends--that being with us would trump their blessed out of sight out of mind mentality about life in general. But if I really think about that, I'm pretty sure that sort of perspective disappears in toddlerhood. When I heard my son tell me that he is going to miss his friends, I felt an awful sinking feeling.

And I'm beginning the process of saying good-bye to my clients. I feel awful right now about that too as I'm the one leaving them rather than them leaving me which would be a much more natural process. That twinge of guilt is mixed with sadness that I won't get to see what happens next in their lives.

But there's nothing like the sadness that I feel when I think about leaving my friends and family. That sadness I haven't yet been able to look directly in the eye. Every time I glance in its direction, I see such a forbidding emptiness that I quickly look away. We'll be back! I keep saying to myself and those around me, wishing that fact would, poof, make the sadness disappear.

I've learned, over the years, that I can be both sad and thrilled, both missing you and excited at the same time. I know that both are real and both are important and neither one cancels out the other. I was about to write that I hope to be able to teach this to my children but I think what I witnessed last night at bedtime is that Gabe is already modeling this for me. He's not saying he doesn't want to go, he's just clear that what is important right now is what we have in front of us right now. I so get that.

So here are some pictures of the kids at their respective sleep-overs, soaking up the joy they get from their friends.