Letting Go

I spent the day yesterday at the beach. Not a bad gig if I do say so myself. We were at the beach all weekend as a family, so the kids’ ocean courage crept up incrementally with dad there to push them along. This left me, the sole week-day warrior-alone with three little fishes ready to take on the big bad surf.

And it was big, and it was bad.

I have always loved the beach. I find great peace there. I also seem to come up with all kinds of metaphors for life at the beach. (This is proving exhausting now that my time there is way more than one week a summer.)

Yesterday, watching my kids take on the ocean, I realized the greatest parenting lesson of all was being thrust in my face with each crashing wave…Let go.

I struggled the entire time we were there yesterday with the urge to grab each of them and run for the car. I want them to be swimmers. I want them to laugh and scream in the ocean like I did for so many summers as a kid. I want them to know the joy I feel as soon as I smell ocean air.
But I also want to protect them-from everything. And watching their little bodies get thrown around by those big, bad waves had my heart all but bursting out of my chest and questions cluttering my brain.
Is it too early for this? Have I prepared them enough as swimmers? Are they strong enough? If I pull them out will the fear ruin their beach time for too long? Are these guards of any use or am I on my own out here? Am I being overprotective? Am I being protective enough?

In the end, I let them go. They swam. They fell. The jumped the white water. The giggled and screamed. They even helped each other up and dragged each other away from impending ocean doom. Yes, there was a part of me that was terrified for the entire time. But the other part of me understood that a job well done means your kids are fine without you-even if they do end up with sand in their nose sometimes.

Another life lesson learned down the shore.

Surf’s up.