Tomorrow my husband and I are getting on a plane for an overnight getaway for the first time since our little guy was born and the first time since moving to Denver. (Actually it’s the first time since both kids were born – 6+ years – that we are actually getting onto a plane and can’t get home in an hour or two). On the one hand, I am delighted that we have found two wonderful women we can trust to take care of our boys and we can actually leave the house together; on the other hand, I am absolutely sick with separation anxiety on behalf of myself and my boys. Everyone I have spoken to about my panic has been reassuring, reminding me that nothing will happen to the boys, and that I should concentrate on having fun. While I know that this is good advice, and my head recognizes the truth in their words, my heart is a mess. I know many parents get away more regularly and easily than we do, but for me this is monumental. And now that our departure is imminent, I can no longer hide from my jumbled emotions.

My little guy lost a stuffed friend today and it was almost too much for me – it felt like a blow to the solar plexus and completely shook my confidence in being able to leave him. I manically searched the house and car, called the grocery store (and went there to double check that they had not missed the precious pup in their cursory scan), reran the entire day in my mind… and then collapsed into tears of desperation, devastation, feeling winded by the unscheduled meanderings of a fluffy finger puppet pet. It is now perhaps an hour later, and I have regained some of my equilibrium, but I can’t say that I am entirely calm or excited or even sane. I am feeling distinctly UNsuper, in fact.

I am beginning to recognize that some of my anxiety comes from the realization that my children are growing up, and I am losing control. I cannot be with them at every turn and keep watch over them. I cannot keep them safe from everything they will face, from all that awaits them in the world. They are going to have experiences that I am not a part of. They will share stories that I will no longer be able to explain or complete. They will go places I have not been, learn things I have never known. This too is exhilarating, enriching, enchanting and excruciating. I have to let them grow, and slowly let them go. All the while loving them, as I do, with every fiber of my being.

Of course some of the anxiety I am feeling comes from the usual sorts of irrational fears that are vague and general… something about emergency rooms and nausea and monsters under the bed. And faring into the unknown. New territory for all of us.

I have decided to go ahead with the trip in spite of the tumult inside, resolving to call the kids often, send pictures, leave behind clothes that smell of me, list all the neighbors’ and friends’ phone numbers I can lay my hands on in case of I don’t know what, buy little gifts to bring home, and focus on having fun while I’m gone. This is a rare opportunity for the grown ups in the household to spend more than an hour or two in each other’s company, and that has to count for something too. My biggest boy deserves some attention too!

So wish me luck. Here I go…