We fear change.

Or do we?

Tonya, my old boss, used to say, “We fear change.”

She said it in the literal sense, but I’m sure she meant it figuratively as well. She was a control freak and wanted a certain sense of predictability in our day-to-day work. We were accountants after all. But on an existential level, she was right, we do fear change - or at least the pain we anticipate it will bring.

My son came home from college and left for his summer job one week later. The other graduated from high school. Painfully slow are the days between now and when he will also leave.

I am so freaking excited to launch them into the world. They are solid, good, strong men.

And, also, it is so freaking hard for me to let them go. It has been at every stage. Control freak. Helicopter mom. Meghan. Whatever you want to call it. I guess sometimes I fear change, too. Even when I want it for them and for me.

It’s in these quiet liminal days between what was and what will be that I am sitting and watching and wondering what will happen next. Rather than clinging with a death grip to what I hold most dear, I am teaching myself to hold loosely and dare I say - let go. It’s a new type of day-to-day work I’m discovering that has nothing to do with fear or control.

I am sitting in this space without doing.

Just being.

I didn’t know it would be this hard.

I can see a future, now, where other roles fill up more predominant space in my life - lover, traveler, intellectual, professional, creator, observer, servant - with reverence, joy, confidence, security, calm, kindness.

It’s time. And I like that for all of us.

If you're in a season of letting go, what are you learning?

If you want to talk about it, I’m here. Or keep reading for a few things that are helping me get through this time of transition.