All of us here in New Orleans know that autumn is a season that happens to other people, in other cities. Sure, we have all of the trappings – pumpkin spice lattes, apple cinnamon hand soap, Halloween costumes – but without the accompanying crisp air and gorgeous foliage.
Still, I feel the change of seasons, even if I can’t see it. My kids are older now, with Rowan off at college and Georgia in her last year of middle school, and this year seems to mark their growing independence more clearly than any weather shift could.
When they were young, fall always meant a trip to the pumpkin patch, where I made them stop bickering long enough to let me take a picture; handprint turkeys, many of which I still have – paint flaking, paper curling; and the school Thanksgiving feast, where my kids would sign me up to bring elaborate desserts and then not mention this to me until the night before the big feast.
Now I have one kid who is happily enjoying real fall at college in New York – picking apples, wearing scarves, drinking mug after mug of hot spiced tea – and one who no longer wants anything to do with me unless it involves giving her a ride somewhere. She’ll be trick-or-treating with her friends and has plans to go with a group to The Mortuary haunted house – and has begged me to drop her off a block away so no one sees the shame of my boring, basic black Toyota Corolla.
Their worlds have shifted, and I am no longer the center, and that’s absolutely gratifying and also sort of heartbreaking.
Rowan will be flying home for Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, and I’m already giddy with anticipation. The thought of stocking all of her favorite snacks and seeing her shoes kicked off by the door and hearing her laugh through the wall while she is talking to her friends – it just fills me with joy.
Winter break will bring her back home for even longer – long enough, I fear, for me to temporarily forget that she doesn’t really live here anymore. I’m sure putting her on the plane to fly back to college will be almost as painful as driving away from her in August.
But I try to remind myself that letting go isn’t a single act. Technically I’ve been letting go since December 2006, when I officially stopped housing an entire second human in my body. Then came her first steps (letting go), her first day at day care (letting go), her first solo bike ride around the neighborhood (letting go), her first time flying on an airplane by herself (letting go), her first time at summer camp (letting go), and her first time driving (and boy oh boy was that a hard one to let go).
Georgia, at 13, is well on her way to hitting almost all of those milestones herself, and sooner than I can even imagine, she too will be heading off to college. Each moment of letting go asks us to release a little more, to trust that what we’ve taught them will hold and that the world will be kind to them.
It’s our ultimate goal as parents – to actually parent our way out of a job, helping our kids to become successful adults who don’t need us anymore. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done – and also the hardest, by far.
Up north, where real fall is happening, the trees are letting go too, one leaf at a time. It’s not dramatic, just steady and inevitable, the quiet brilliance of nature knowing when to release. I, too, am learning when to hold tight and when to loosen my grip. Motherhood, like the seasons, is a practice in surrender, of realizing how much nature will do on its own, without any intervention. And autumn – just like kids leaving the nest – is a reminder that what falls away makes space for what’s next. And maybe that’s its own kind of season, even if the leaves never turn.
