How is it that my mood is so dependent on the mood of my girls in the morning?
This morning my 11 year old daughter woke feeling anxious and sad about her day. She is nervous about a french test she has today at school. I duly took the time to listen to her and hear her anxieties about the day, then reassured her that whatever the outcome, just getting through it would be a success. And that by trying the best that she can she has already won.
I have about 45 minutes in the morning with my kids to get out of the door in the morning, we leave to get them to the train station for 7:30am and usually, being almost teenagers, they're pretty grumpy. We listen to some music in the car to start the day off right, keep things light and free of stress and then they're gone.
Then...
I'm then left to drive to work, or back home, and continue my day and yet I seem to carry their anxieties with me, often for the rest of the day. It takes me right back to their pre-school days, when I would drop them off and they would be crying and clinging on to me, scared to go in, and the pre-school worker would literally peel me off them, only for me to be left worrying about them all day until I returned to collect them. Remember those days???
And every time I picked them up I was told that they had calmed within five minutes and had a lovely time for the rest of the day, whereas I had been plagued with my memories of those few minutes and had convinced myself that they had been crying and out of sorts all day - when in actual fact that was just me.
That's what I keep telling myself anyway...
Now...
It just doesn't seem to matter how old they are, the worry for them just doesn't seem to go away. I'm left wondering whether when they're all grown up and have moved away from home, if this feeling will preside, whether every exam, every job interview or relationship breakup they go through will leave me with similar concerns for their overall wellbeing. And then it dawns on me - of course it will. Because it's been there since the minute they were born, if not before, and it's very simple - that feeling is love.
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