Today was one of those days that you know comes as your children get older and yet it still sneaks up on you surprising you in all of the bigness and importantness of the day. Today, we became a crib-less house.
We’ve done this before. In fact, when we moved into this house seven years ago, we were a crib-less house. It seems so long ago and yet just like it was yesterday.
This is what happens in transition. Even when we see the transition coming, even when we’ve had the countdown going, still when it is actually time to initiate the change, move things along, and make space for that change something within us often tremors questioning whether it was *really* time yet.
Transitions are what remind us that time is passing, that we are getting older, that time is fleeting. They kick us out of our to-do list and our normal routine to awaken our awareness again. Transitions are what reconnect us to the divine and how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
As I was taking apart the crib, I remembered putting it together the first time and then the second time. I remember the anticipation of the new lives that are now drawing on the walls. I remember wondering what it would be like. I remember late nights leaned over those crib rails rubbing backs and singing lullabies almost falling asleep.
It’s the remembering that makes transitions so special and so important. And maybe it’s all the remembering that makes us tremor because it makes us wonder whether we could have done things differently or better or more intentionally. Maybe it’s the remembering that makes us put off transition, keeping them as far off as possible. Maybe it’s the remembering that makes transitions such hard and important work.
To all the remembering today, I’ve also added another memory: the smile of our two-year-old as she crawled into her new toddler bed all by herself and said, “Wook at me!! I get some west now.”