Letting go: it's a process

We're working on making Noah's room a regular adult bedroom, but I have to work in there in small chunks of time, because I get emotionally overwhelmed.  His ever-present security item (my old nightshirt that he named Barney) was left in his bed.  I wasn't convinced he would ever give up his Barney, but there he was.  I held him for a minute but felt the flood rising, so I quickly moved on before it overflowed.  It's overflowing now as I'm typing and remembering how he used to sleep with me when he was a baby, and the only way I could get out from under him was to worm my way out of my nightshirt and leave it in his little fist. Eventually, it just became his, and he couldn't sleep without it or go anywhere without it. He had so many adventures with Barney that he even wrote a book about it when he was in kindergarten, and it won the Reading Rainbow Young Writers & Illustrators Contest. 

I remember the tumult of the day that his little sister cut a piece off of Barney for some reason, and I tied it back on with a knot and tried to console Noah with the idea that, "Look, now Barney has a tail!"  Barney's tail is still there after all these years.

I was able to work on his room for a good 15 minutes until I found the thing that undid me and I just sat in the middle of his room and cried and knew I wasn't going to get anything else done in there that day.  It was this little charred reminder of the day we made maple syrup.  I remember how hard he worked that day and what fun we had, and I scrawled out a little memento for him, which he apparently has kept.  

For the full story, see the original post. In one of those pictures, you can see his little dump truck full of these slats of wood, one of which became the memento.

It's normal and natural and healthy and good that he has grown up and moved into his own house, and I am so proud of him and happy for him, but sometimes my mama heart breaks a little when I realize that my constant companion of the last 18 years is gone.  I cry for awhile and then remind myself to suck it up, because thank God he didn't die; he just moved 10 miles away, and I still see him lots.