Holding On, Letting Go and School Buses

I was sitting in the dental chair today for a routine cleaning. This is a unique dental office in that it is on the second floor and faces a big bay window which overlooks the busy road below. I watched a trail of school buses, one after another, test driving for the beginning of school which starts next week. Holding on, letting go and school buses are important parts of life.

Wasn’t it just yesterday when I walked to the bus stop with my older brother (the one who threw the first pitch at the Louisville Bats game a few weeks ago…never let him forget he’s older), and with my mom on that very first day, with an excitement mixed with trepidation because I knew not what the day held, and didn’t really grasp that my life was about to change.

Life is a series of changes.

The buses continued their trek as my mind marched back to the days when my kids were young and school was beginning for them. Although school buses weren’t a part of their lives for they were homeschooled, my mind still lingered on the first days of their school careers and all the firsts that make up a life for every individual.

My trip to the local Wal-Mart store this morning added to this feeling of nostalgia as I looked at the aisles of notebooks and writing utensils, and backpacks and all the things that are designed to make the land of academia an easier place to navigate. I wouldn’t be walking those aisles for the first time in 18 years. A part of me really wanted to, but there is another part that is embracing the changes that are coming as well as the ones that have already taken place.

It is important to hold on to the moments when they come and equally as important to let them g0.

There is a time for all things.

There is a time for letting go.

There’s a time too for holding on, briefly and gently so, because it is in the letting go that the new things can come.

They say a seed must die in order for life to begin.

Don’t be afraid to let the seed die.

Don’t be afraid to hold on either, when it’s time. It’s an important lesson to learn. For it’s in the holding on that you learn the value of letting go. And it’s in the letting go that new life can begin.

I’m not sure what all of this has to do with the school buses I encountered today.

But holding on, letting go and school buses are all a part of life.

Holding on and letting go and the balancing of it all.

And those bright yellow school buses.