When Letting Go Meets Holding On

On our drive home from RJ’s piano lesson the other day, he suddenly asked me from the back seat, “Mommy, do you think I’m more mature than the kids my age?”

I hadn’t thought about it before, so I didn’t answer right away. He kept going: “You know why I like taking showers? And long ones too?”

“Why?” I asked, curious where this was headed.

“I think the hot shower and steam stimulates my brain. I love processing my thoughts. Ideas just pour out when I’m in there.”

I looked straight ahead to the road and smiled quietly. What a thing for a twelve-year-old to say.

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Lately, moments like these stop me in my tracks. RJ is becoming more independent, more himself. He doesn’t need me in the same way as before. Of course I’m proud, watching him grow is the greatest gift of my life. But there’s also an ache in it. Each step he takes forward leaves me standing behind, learning how to love him with more space than closeness.

And in that space, I’m left with myself again. The woman who has poured so much into being a new mom, holding together routines and responsibilities, now realizing she has to give time and space back to herself.

The struggle is harder than I had anticipated: part of me wants to keep holding on, to the steadiness, to the comfort of what’s familiar, and to the satisfaction of being needed. Another part of me longs for something more. More spark, more aliveness, more of the fullness I’ve buried under “what needs to get done.”

I want both. But some days it feels like I can’t have both.

So I walk around carrying this quiet heaviness. Pride and ache. Holding on and letting go. Watching RJ grow into his own maturity, while wondering how to grow back into my own.

Maybe this is just where I am right now: sitting in the in-between. Loving, supporting, showing up, and also learning to listen to the part of me that still wants more.