My daughter just moved into a new classroom at daycare, so this week has been full of tearful good-byes. I knew the transition would be tough - she loved her old class (affectionately called the River Otters) and had gotten attached to the teachers. The routines and environment were familiar to her.
But this change has to happen, like they all do. And it will include its share of growing pains.
The new class (the Jellyfish room) brings a host of new adjustments: Margo sits at a small table rather than a high chair, she sleeps on a cot instead of a crib, and she has her own cubby. She only uses her paci at naptime now.
There is a part of me that wonders if she is ready for all of these changes at once. Perhaps it’s the part of me that doesn’t want to see her grow up; the part of me that laments taking her paci away. The part that wants to freeze time, to press the pause button because we have finally started to figure out some things at this stage. The part of me that hates change and transition even though I know how necessary they are.
These changes are happening because Margo is growing – which is a good thing!
So, then, why does it all feel so hard?
It’s sad how we sometimes have to rush their growing up, my mom texted me when I told her about Margo’s crying for the second morning in a row.
Yes, it is, I thought, as tears welled in my own eyes. And then I kept thinking … is it even possible to rush someone’s growth?
In the same way that we can’t prevent or stop someone’s growth, I’m not sure that there’s a way that we can speed it along, either.
We are a lot like plants. If you try to rush a plant’s growth, say, by over feeding or too much sun, it won’t thrive. Similarly, if you try to halt its growth, it will wither and die. The plant will let you know what it needs one way or another.
We can influence a plant’s growth by reading its cues and giving it optimal conditions to flourish. Put it by a sunny window (but make sure it doesn’t get scorched), give it a wall to climb, make sure its soil can dry out between waterings if needed. But ultimately, the plant is going to grow at its own pace, in its own way.
I think we are the same. If I’m really trying to rush my daughters growth, there would be too much friction, and she would suffer. (This is why we’ve decided to let Margo continue sleeping with her paci for now – she has let us know that she still needs it!) On the flip side, if I try to stall her growth, there wouldn’t be enough challenge and she would protest.
We, all of us, live with this tension: the tension between staying little and growing up; between the person we are now and the person we want to be. The tension, as I see it, is the distance between where we are and where we’re going. It’s our room for growth. Without it, we have no direction.
And we need direction. We need room for growth and change, because our natural state is constant evolution. Staying in one place for too long makes us feel stale and stagnant. I’m there now – my body and soul are itching for a change, which is on the horizon with baby #2 arriving soon.
It’s tough to find the balance between having one foot in and one foot out of your comfort zone. I’m learning this from Margo.
Change, even though it’s innate, is not easy.
I keep circling back to the question of why. Why, if we were made to change and grow and evolve, does it feel so uncomfortable?
The only answer that I can come up with is this:
Change forces us to acknowledge the weight of our temporary existence. It’s the urgency that we feel to capture these fleeting moments, knowing how precious they are. Like trying to snap a picture of a butterfly that’s here one moment and gone the next – before you can fully appreciate its beauty. But I guess that’s part of what makes this life so beautiful. It’s evanescent and unique. There is a reverence that accompanies the understanding that we will never experience the same thing twice. We’ll never be able to go back in time and retrace our steps as the people we once were.
So we continue moving forward towards growth and change, dragging along the parts of us that want to stay put. We hold our heads high and we try to model for our kids that change, while difficult, is something to be admired rather than feared.