Five Hundred Feet Where???

photo by Marco Lavigne-Thomas

 
This morning, I receive this photo of my son, taken three nights ago.

He and some friends climbed up a rock face, and settled  up there for the night. About 500 feet above the valley floor. All cozy, you know?

Someone said to me once, before I had kids, that having children was like having your heart walk outside of your body.

As my children grew up, I started to understand that sentence more and more. That feeling of vulnerability, of knowing that at any given time my heart could get crushed irrepairably.  I remember this whole concept taking a little while to find its way into me, to the place where eventually, some peace moved in. Some simple surrender. Some sense of being fully aware that while my heart was just as attached, I had less and less control. Acknowledging  this diminishing control was surprisingly soothing.

Eventually, my kiddies walked out into the world on their own, and in their own way.

And somehow, as they travel, grow, explore, learn, I manage to sleep through the night. Whereas twenty years ago I  used to  get up in the middle of the night to check that they were still breathing, I now go to bed each night, at peace.

Because there is nothing I can do about it.

Here's to growing up, alongside our children, alongside the ones we love.  Growing that little space inside of us that says that we can love as big as we can - and that we control so very little.

And that it's okay.

(that being said, I am thankful that I didn't know about the 500-feet-above-the-valley-floor camp out until three days later)

Wishing you a peacefully exciting day!